Iain Duncan Smith’s election present for the Golden Oldies: Bye Bye bus pass and fuel payments

Westminster Confidential

Iain Duncan Smith’s endangered speciesthe free bus pass

George Osborne has made a lot of noise about how  pensioners  with spare cash are going to get  a fabulous deal under the Coalition – high interest pensioner bonds and the chance to spend, spend their pension  pot.

 All this is seen by political commentators as a  brilliant move by the  Chancellor to get the grey vote out for the Tories next year – with many of the measures timed for the election.

He also made it clear that pensions were going to be exempt from the new welfare cap – which will hit everyone else from lone parents, the disabled.and the working poor on housing benefit.

Sounds too good to be true for  the elderly. And guess what, it is.

Hidden in the specialist publication The House Magazine today is an interview with Works and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan…

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Iain Duncan Smith targets poor pensioners with plans to scrap free bus passes and winter fuel allowance

Iain Duncan Smith tonight stepped up the Tory war on the poor by turning his sights on society’s most vulnerable.

The penny-pinching Work and Pensions Secretary wants to slash winter fuel allowances for pensioners and scrap their free bus passes and TV licences in a move that would spell misery for millions of people.

His cruel cuts could mean OAPs having to choose between heating their homes or eating as they lose up to £300 in cold weather payments.

And the over-75s would also have to fork out £145 for TV licences.

Mr Duncan Smith’s move finally destroyed any claim the party had to being caring Conservatives.

And it flies in the face of David Cameron’s election pledge to rule out cuts to pensioner ­benefits.

Mr Duncan Smith, whose flagship Universal Credit policy is in chaos, said the Government was discussing whether to put OAP payments into a wider Whitehall cap on welfare spending.

He revealed today: “We need maximum flexibility with the cap. Pretty much all existing ringfences will have to disappear.”

Shadow Chief ­Secretary to the Treasury Chris Leslie said: “There are clearly major divisions within the Government over whether to cap pensioner benefits.

“One minute Downing Street are ruling it out and the next Iain Duncan Smith is ruling it in. It is time for the Government to come clean over what exactly they are going to do with pensioner benefits.”

Mr Duncan Smith’s move will also pile pressure on Mr Cameron to again rule out cuts to pensioner welfare.

The proposed spending cap was announced by George Osborne last year and will be formally set in the Budget later this year. At that time, the Chancellor will also set out which benefits will be included in it.

It will include most welfare payments – including housing benefit, tax credits and income support, Treasury sources said last night. But it will not include pensions or Job Seekers’ Allowance.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/iain-duncan-smith-targets-poor-3109721

Target the tax avoiders, not pensioners’ benefits. 1st may 2013

From ‘The Express’ 1st May 2013

A FURIOUS backlash against threats to pensioners’ benefits yesterday led to the Government being told to concentrate instead on stopping multi-billion pound tax avoidance by greedy companies…….

Rather than cutting the winter fuel allowance, free bus passes and tele­vision licences for better off pensioners, ministers were told to crack down on the loopholes exploited by firms such as Starbucks and Amazon…………….

Dot Gibson, National Pensioners Convention general secretary said: “Millions of pensioners will be dismayed that different members of the Coalition are lining up to attack universal benefits and yet they seem less keen on tackling the big businesses who are avoiding billions of pounds worth of tax.

“The Government seems to have got its priorities wrong.”

Only yesterday “sweetheart” tax deals were revealed which saved just four corporations £4.5billion between them. And earlier this month energy giant npower admitted that it has not paid any corporation tax at all in the UK for three years after shifting millions in profits to Malta……………

Critics of Mr Duncan Smith point out that if benefits were removed from pensioners in the top tax bracket, the amount raised would be at most about £250million, less than one per cent of the total £160billion welfare budget.

Just 250,000 older people are in the higher tax bracket and any money saved by removing benefits like bus passes and the winter fuel allowance from them would be wiped out by the expense involved in means-testing all 11 million pensioners.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/396091/Iain-Duncan-Smith-urged-to-target-the-tax-avoiders-not-pensioners-benefits?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+daily-express-uk-news+%28Daily+Express+%3A%3A+UK+Feed%29