"The axing of the winter fuel payment is simply ageism" - our survey reveals even the experts are angry

As November wears on and the mercury drops by its customary 4ºC or so, ten million pensioners will feel the cold breeze of reality: that they won’t be receiving their winter fuel payments for the first time in 24 years.

And Saga customers aren’t happy about it.

In our survey of 4,004 – aged between 50 and over 100 – 66% disagreed with the government’s decision to strip the benefit from all but the very poorest (those on pension credit).

But when it comes to our columnist Paul Lewis’s view that the payments should continue for all pensioners, our respondents were split: 41% for and 51% against, with a majority (73%) certainly wanting to see a tapering of the benefit.

As it is, if you have income of even £1 a week over the cut-off for pension credit, you get nothing. 

But will it affect those who took part in the survey?

• 9% say it will greatly affect their household.
• 48% say it will affect them a little.
• 41% say the changes won’t affect them at all. 

In fact, just 1% of respondents receive pension credit. Also 20% revealed they felt guilty about getting the annual £200 or £300 payment and 19% gave it to charity or family.

But 62% believe its removal is disrespectful to pensioners.

Many (65%) say they are annoyed by the current narrative that all pensioners are affluent.

Dr Carole Easton, chief executive of the Centre for Ageing Better, is sympathetic. "We know that’s very far from the truth," she says. "There are high rates of poverty among pensioners and growing – about 18% are in poverty, for whom this is a real blow and it’s worrying if they feel they cannot put their heating on this winter."

She thinks the lazy assumption that all pensioners are rich is ageism, pure and simple.

"You’re lumping everyone over a certain age together as if there’s no diversity, but there is more diversity among older people than there is among younger people."

"And for people in poverty in older age, there isn’t a way out. You can’t increase your income," she says.

Former Liberal Democrat pensions minister Steve Webb thinks the reason so many were riled by the news, even if they didn’t personally need the payment, is the way it was announced.

"It was that sense of being picked on, being first against the wall," he says.

"If Rachel Reeves had simply stood up at the Budget in October and said, 'I’m going to do horrible things to everybody – more on petrol, put capital gains tax up, stop winter fuel payments for all', everyone might have gone ouch, but we’re all in this together.

"As it was, you’re left with the feeling that you’re the least deserving group in society, the ones we care about least."

However, he does say the government had little choice but to announce it in July to be in time to stop payments this winter. Webb doesn’t think tapering pension credit would work (too bureaucratic), though he’s had letters already from those just £2 or £5 above the cut-off, who will be hardest hit.

In fact, the new policy on winter fuel payments means five out of six pensioners in poverty will lose out.

"That’s pretty shocking," he says.

It’s thought up to 880,000 are eligible for pension credit but don’t claim, and successive governments have failed to improve take-up much.

He doesn’t buy into the myth all pensioners are wealthy, either, but he does point out that the £218.15 cut-off for pension credit is a lot higher than the £90-odd received by the unemployed of working age.

"A couple living on Universal Credit get less than a single pensioner on pension credit. Clearly there’s a generation of pensioners with good final salary pensions that their children won’t get who have done pretty well. They exist. But there are plenty who don’t fit the stereotype."