Winter Fuel Allowance changes “ad hoc”

Poverty Snow covered houses
NewsJanuary 3rd, 2013

Proposed changes to Winter Fuel Allowance be the thin end of the wedge for universal benefits, warned Bevan Foundation Director Victoria Winckler.  Responding to an idea by UK Minister Paul Berstow that the Allowance could be abolished, Victoria told the Western Mail on 3rd January 2013:

“It is hard to justify keeping the allowance for well-off pensioners when other universal benefits – like child benefit – are being withdrawn from relatively high earners and benefits for people on low incomes are being drastically cut. But ‘picking off’ benefits to be withdrawn in an ad hoc way and pitting one group of people against another is not the way forward.

“The risk is that the social security system – which is there to protect anyone if they fall on hard times – is being eroded by a raft of piecemeal changes made in the name of austerity.”

Read more: Wales Online http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2013/01/03/welsh-government-concerned-over-winter-fuel-cut-call-91466-32542334/#ixzz2HHv2PCBf

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