Age UK response to Government's equality analysis on WFP

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK said:

"When challenged about its policy, the Government has repeatedly countered that the poorest pensioners will keep their Winter Fuel Payment through being eligible for Pension Credit. However, the official document released on Friday evening shows that even within Government they are projecting that three quarters of a million of these older people on the lowest incomes will not put in a Pension Credit claim this year, and so will go into this winter without the Payment, at the same time as energy prices are rising by 10%. 

"The partial impact analysis also finds that pensioners aged over 80 will lose the most financially through the means-testing of Winter Fuel Payment, and that 7 in 10 disabled pensioners will no longer receive it. These two findings should be considered together, in that the prevalence of disability rises with age. 

"Right from the start, Age UK has said that we are incredibly worried that means-testing Winter Fuel Payment will make poor pensioners poorer this winter, and that many sick and disabled pensioners will also lose the Payment when they can ill afford to do so. Sadly, this Government document comes to exactly the same conclusion. 

"In the light of this information we believe the Government is duty bound to bring forward additional measures at the Budget to safeguard the poor, sick and disabled pensioners who their own analysis shows will lose their Winter Fuel Payment this year and who will clearly struggle as a result - this or court disaster when the weather chills. We estimate that about two and a half million older people are in this position overall. Age UK would be happy to work with the Treasury and the Department of Work and Pensions to put together the most effective package."

"The Government's immediate response to these revelations has been to seek to rely on the rise in the State Pension this year and next as justification for a policy change which its own analysis now shows will hurt millions of pensioners who are poor, sick and disabled. However, it's important to understand that older people aged over 80, the hardest hit group of all according to their own projections, have not and will not receive the full rise that Government spokespeople are referring to because they are on an older form of the State Pension. It is only younger pensioners on the full State Pension - again not all of them - who will gain the full amount."