Category Archives: Welfare

Winter fuel: thousands more could lose benefit if it becomes means tested, data suggests

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A further 175,000 pensioners are likely to stop receiving allowance under such plans, official figures show

A further 175,000 pensioners could lose the winter fuel allowance if the benefit becomes means tested, data suggests.

About 11.6 million people in the UK received the benefit last winter, an increase of 214,000 on the previous year, according to figures released on Tuesday by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The overwhelming majority are to have this removed this winter under plans announced by the Labour government to cut spending on the benefit.

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Cutting winter fuel payments ‘right decision’, says Reeves, as No 10 says no change to council tax discount for single people – Labour conference live

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Chancellor says £22bn gap in current spending budget and state pension rise meant she had to make decision on means-testing fuel payments

In interview this morning Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, defended her own decision to accept clothing donations worth £7,500 when she was in opposition.

Speaking on the Today programme, she said:

I can understand why people find it a little bit odd that politicians get support for things like buying clothes.

Now, when I was an opposition MP, when I was shadow chancellor of the exchequer, a friend of mine who I’ve known for years [Juliet Rosenfeld] – she’s a good personal friend – wanted to support me as shadow chancellor and the way she wanted to support me was to finance my office to be able to buy clothes for the campaign trail and for big events and speeches that I made as shadow chancellor.

It’s never something that I planned to do as a government minister, but it did help me in opposition.

It’s rightly the case that we don’t ask taxpayers to fund the bulk of the campaigning work and the research work that politicians do, but that does require, then, donations – from small donations, from party members and supporters, from larger contributions, from people who have been very successful in life and want to give something back.

We appreciate that support. It’s part of the reason why we are in government today, because we were able to do that research work, and we were able to do that campaigning.

Unite and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) have put forward motions which were due to be debated on Monday afternoon, with strong support expected from other unions.

Sources said unions were told late on Sunday that the debate is being moved to Wednesday morning.

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Scotland could extend winter fuel allowance, Scottish Labour argues

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Further devolution next year will bring allowance under Scottish control just months before Holyrood elections

Scottish Labour believes access to the winter fuel allowance could be widened in Scotland as it tries to fight off its opponents’ attacks before the next Holyrood election.

Scotland will be able to decide which pensioners get the allowance from October next year under further devolution of benefits to Holyrood, eight months before a Scottish parliamentary election that Labour sees as critical to its revival.

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Benefit sanctions more likely for minority ethnic claimants, UK data shows

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Black universal credit claimants 58% more likely to get sanctions than white people, while mixed ethnic groups are 72% more likely

Black and minority ethnic benefit claimants are disproportionately likely to be hit with universal credit sanctions – financial penalties typically running into hundreds of pounds – according to official statistics unveiled for the first time.

Black universal credit claimants were 58% more likely to be sanctioned than white claimants, mixed ethnic groups were 72% more likely and Asians 5% more likely, according to the figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

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Shorten furious over robodebt department head’s attempt to position herself as ‘scapegoat’

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Kathryn Campbell defends her role in unlawful scheme and rejects claim she came up with program with former prime minister Scott Morrison

Bill Shorten has launched an excoriating attack of former public servant Kathryn Campbell after she claimed she was unfairly blamed in the robodebt scandal and defended her decisions around the scheme.

“Robodebt was a shocking betrayal and failure of empathy towards vulnerable people who needed support from the government,” Shorten said on Saturday.

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Starmer says rebuilding UK means painful decisions, not just ‘a lick of paint’

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PM defends choices such as cutting winter fuel allowance as long-term remedies as polls show his popularity falling

Keir Starmer has said painful decisions such as cutting winter fuel payment to save £1.4bn a year are necessary as failure to act would be simply “putting a lick of paint over the damp”.

The prime minister described the process of taking decisions “that aren’t going to be popular” as part of a strategy of “strip down the joint, rebuild the house”.

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We did not do impact assessment of winter fuel payment cut, No 10 admits

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Spokesperson for Keir Starmer says focus was instead on encouraging pensioners to seek additional support

Ministers did not carry out a specific impact assessment on the withdrawal of the winter fuel payment from the bulk of pensioners, such as the potential effect on illness and death rates among older people, Downing Street has said.

After days of No 10 refusing to comment, Keir Starmer’s deputy spokesperson said the only assessment made before the policy announcement was a standard legal one of potential equalities impacts.

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Winter fuel allowance cut: who voted for this? – Politics Weekly UK

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The government saw off a rebellion over its plans to cut winter fuel allowance this week. John Harris speaks to Caroline Abrahams from Age UK about what this winter will look like for millions of pensioners losing out. Plus, he talks to columnist Rafael Behr about whether the technocrats (Starmer and Reeves) are taking the Labour party in the wrong direction

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UK government will stand firm on plan to cut winter fuel payments, says minister

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Housing minister says policy will not be watered down day after dozens of Labour MPs abstained in key vote

Plans to scale back winter fuel payments for pensioners will not be watered down, a UK government minister has said, after dozens of Labour MPs abstained on a key Commons vote on Tuesday night.

The housing and planning minister, Matthew Pennycook, was speaking the morning after MPs voted to remove the winter fuel allowance from all but the poorest pensioners in England and Wales.

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Woman, 86, told she no longer has to repay £13,000 in benefits in DWP U-turn

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Exclusive: Case of Sia Kasparis, who has dementia, had been highlighted in Guardian investigation into unpaid care

An 86-year-old woman with advanced dementia has been told by the government she no longer has to repay a £13,000 benefit debt after her case was highlighted by the Guardian.

Sia Kasparis, who is partially blind and has been bed-bound for two years, was ordered to repay the huge sum after officials said she had failed to notify them her son had taken up caring duties.

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Regulator may take action against three energy retailers over alleged misuse of Centrepay system

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Australian Energy Regulator weighs up enforcement options against AGL, Origin and Ergon Energy after landmark court win

The national energy regulator is weighing up whether to take new action against three retailers for their alleged use of the Centrepay system after a landmark court win against AGL.

The Australian Energy Regulator won a major case in the federal court against AGL in August after alleging the energy giant used the government-run payment system to wrongly take welfare money from almost 500 customers for years after they ceased being customers.

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Keir Starmer warns of tough times ahead to fix ‘Tory ruins’

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Labour leader tells working people rot left by Conservatives is so much worse than imagined and improvement won’t happen overnight

British people will have to endure even worse economic and social ­pressures in the months to come as the Labour government takes “unpopular decisions” to rebuild the country from “rubble and ruin” left by the Tories, Keir Starmer will warn this week.

With the prime minister under mounting pressure from within his own party to help people struggling with rising fuel payments and millions of families in poverty, Starmer will strike a defiant note against those demanding U-turns from his ministers, saying “tough choices” will have to be made before any recovery is possible.

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Which benefits are available to vulnerable people under Labour?

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As the winter fuel allowance is scrapped for many pensioners, we outline some other key benefits

• Millions facing ‘cruel winter’ without fuel payments, Labour MPs warn

Labour backbenchers are warning that millions of vulnerable people will face a “cruel winter” amid rising energy prices and a reduction in benefits, including the removal of winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners.

Keir Starmer’s government has promised to improve conditions for those most in need, with a commitment to “reduce and alleviate” child poverty and end the “moral scar” of food banks. And while Labour sees economic growth and creating more reliable and well-paid jobs as crucial to achieving these aims, it cannot ignore a number of pressing and often interrelated problems in the social security and benefits system.

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Social support payment systems may be reviewed as DV commissioner warns they are being ‘weaponised’ against women

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Micaela Cronin highlights concerns that payment systems are used to punish current and former intimate partners

The federal government is considering an across-the-board audit of social support payment systems to identify whether they are putting people at risk, as the commissioner monitoring its national anti-violence plan warns they are being “weaponised” against women.

The domestic, family and sexual violence commissioner, Micaela Cronin, suggested on Wednesday that the government was reviewing all of its payment systems out of concern that they were being used to punish current and former intimate partners.

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Major job provider accused of trying to get jobseeker to sign off on false work invoice

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Woman claims APM threatened to cut off her jobseeker payment after she refused to sign false time sheet. APM denies any wrongdoing

One of the country’s biggest job providers is accused of pressuring a jobseeker to sign a false description of her employment status, an alleged deception which would have triggered a publicly funded payment to the company.

The Victorian woman, who did not want to be named, claims the employment service provider APM asked her to sign paperwork confirming she had worked four weeks when she had actually spent months on sick leave. APM has strongly denied any wrongdoing.

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Ditching two-child benefit cap would cut deaths and A&E admissions, study says

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England research shows huge benefits with resulting savings for NHS and councils

Curbing child poverty by scrapping the two-child benefit cap would save hundreds of lives a year and avoid thousands of admissions to hospital, the largest study of its kind suggests.

Keir Starmer has faced repeated demands from within Labour ranks and opposition leaders to abolish the policy, which was announced in 2015 by George Osborne, then chancellor. Almost half of all children in some towns and cities now live below the breadline.

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Centrepay report that found major failings ‘ignored’ by successive Coalition governments, author says

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Advocate Anna Buduls AO says her 2013 report, which found major failings with the controversial Centrepay debt recovery system, was mostly forgotten about

A government-appointed reviewer who warned the government of serious problems with its Centrepay debt recovery system 11 years ago says her report was “mostly buried” and ignored and has expressed “huge sadness” that people continued to suffer.

Anna Buduls was tasked by the Gillard government in 2012 to review the controversial system. She recommended a significant overhaul of the system to stop the “exploitation of financially vulnerable people by some unscrupulous operators”.

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UK pensioners left on ‘financial cliff edge’ by cuts to winter fuel payments

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New analysis shows tens of thousands of older people may end up worse off than those who retain energy benefit

Tens of thousands of pensioners are on a financial cliff edge because of the government’s decision to radically restrict winter fuel payments, a new analysis has revealed. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, opted to introduce a means test for the payments, with only those on pension credit qualifying, stating it was one of the “difficult decisions” she had to make, as she accused the Tories of leaving £22bn in unfunded commitments.

The decision removes the payments from about 10 million pensioners in England and Wales. Officials said this weekend the policy would be among a package of measures “to fix the foundations of the economy”.

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Media exposure has forced the government’s hand on Centrepay. The contrast with robodebt could not be more stark

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The Centrepay revelations should shock Australians – but not the government, after years of complaints about financial exploitation

In the months since the government announced it would overhaul its controversial Centrepay debit system, one thing has become abundantly clear.

Many already knew it was failing.

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Consumer watchdog urges crackdown on businesses using Centrepay to cause financial harm

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It is alleged energy companies deducted money from welfare payments of people, including Indigenous Australians, who were no longer customers

The consumer watchdog has joined a group of regulators, lawyers and financial advocates calling for a crackdown on predatory businesses using the government-run Centrepay to cause financial harm to welfare recipients, including Indigenous Australians.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission deputy chair Catriona Lowe said the watchdog had heard complaints about Centrepay – a debit system giving businesses early access to people’s welfare money – for “many years”.

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