‘Extreme anxiety, anger and distress over fuel poverty’ – older people’s commissioner for Wales
Chris Haines, ICNN Senedd reporter
The older people’s commissioner for Wales called for funding to alleviate the impact of winter fuel payment cuts amid “extreme anxiety, anger and distress” over fuel poverty.
Rhian Bowen-Davies urged the Welsh Government to set up a distinct fund for older people to mitigate against Westminster’s decision to introduce means-testing.
Ms Bowen-Davies, who was appointed for a seven-year term in July, warned the withdrawal of universal winter fuel payments will have a significant impact.
She told the Senedd’s equality committee: “I felt that this decision was the wrong decision… it should have been reversed, I think that opportunity has been missed with the budget.”
She added: “I felt the approach was wrong in terms of it being rushed through and I also felt the timeline was unrealistic for people to apply.”
‘Inappropriate’
The new older people’s commissioner, who is a former police officer, welcomed the Unite union taking legal action to try to overturn the cuts.
Giving evidence to an inquiry on fuel poverty, she told the committee an estimated 50,000 households in Wales are eligible for pension credit but do not claim the extra income.
Warning the eligibility criteria for the Welsh Government’s discretionary assistance fund is too narrow, she urged ministers to follow the example of Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Ms Bowen-Davies pointed to a £100 payment for all older people in Northern Ireland this winter, with no application needed and a similar scheme set to follow in Scotland.
She raised concerns about the Welsh Government’s refreshed Warm Homes programme, with a lack of boiler repairs leaving some households without heating and hot water.
‘Huge increase’
She told the committee the boiler replacement scheme has since opened but only until March as she called for a better balance between warm homes and decarbonisation.
Age Cymru highlighted a “huge” 1,144% increase in calls to its advice line about winter fuel payments and a 99% rise for pension credit enquiries from 2023 to 2024.
Ceri Cryer, Age Cymru’s policy adviser, raised similar concerns about the equality impact of an emphasis on heat pumps that are inappropriate for some homes.
She warned the upfront and ongoing costs of heat pumps are beyond many people’s means.
Rebecca Hill, a senior public health specialist at Public Health Wales, expressed concerns about a trend towards older people skipping meals and cutting back on heating.
‘Extreme anxiety’
Dr Hill said: “We know that colder homes are linked to heart and lung conditions, infectious respiratory illnesses such as flu. We also see higher rates of deaths in cold months … and we know a majority of those deaths accrue amongst our oldest population.”
She also pointed to evidence that older people in colder homes have higher blood pressure and cholesterol, problems with sleep and reduced physical performance, leading to falls.
Ms Bowen-Davies warned older people are experiencing “extreme anxiety, anger and distress” as she called for interim targets in the Welsh Government’s fuel poverty plan.
Raising concerns about the disproportionate impact of the cost-of-living crisis, she pointed out that many older people have to budget for soaring bills from a fixed income.
She told the meeting on December 9: “What older people are saying to me is they are having to make really difficult decisions in terms of how much they are eating on a daily basis and the individual rooms that they are heating.”
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Politically perhaps it might be wise for the Labour Welsh Gov to provide extra help for pensioners, but for the devolved services such as the NHS, education, social care and the arts to have tens of millions of taken away from them so that all pensioners including millionaires and the 50,000 households in Wales eligible for pension credit from the UK Gov who don’t bother to claim it to be given a winter uplift by the Welsh Gov. That would be financial insanity.
Let’s not forget that winter fuel payments were introduced in 1997 by Blair/Brown to alleviate pensioner poverty after 18 years of Thatcher/Major cutting the state pension (in real terms). Let’s also not forget that the pension triple lock was introduced in 2010 (and is still in place) by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition to increase the state pension (in real terms) – arguably the only thing the Tories got right. The result of 14 years of the triple lock is that most pensioners have been lifted out of poverty and no longer need the winter fuel payment. Those who still need… Read more »
You were doing well there until your emotive traits got the better of you and you had to get “greedy and grasping” into your piece. Pause and consider that the State Pension is still well below the earnings of a person on adult minimum wage doing say 35 hours a week. Or are you really one of those people who thinks everyone should be made to rely on a highly speculative private pension provision built on insurance company fund contributions ? Fuel poverty is a pain shared by people of all age groups where there are income deficiencies. The real… Read more »
‘greedy and grasping’ is actually spot on in a lot of cases. A friend of mine works as a benefits advisor. He deals with queries from very wealthy pensionsers who don’t qualify for means tested benefits precisely becuase they are too wealthy. You wouldn’t believe the number of times he’s heard a pensioner say something along the lines of ‘can’t you pretend that you didn’t hear about my £150,000 in savings, my rental properties bringing in £4,000 per month and my three fat private pensions (which were of course final salary pensions before us baby boomers pulled up the ladder… Read more »
“Pensioners lifted out of poverty and will no longer need the Winter Fuel payment” sic. Meanwhile… “She (Liz Kendall) admitted that the restrictions to the Winter Fuel Payment are forecast to push 50,000 more pensioners into relative poverty this winter and between 50,000 and 100,000 in subsequent years” Government letter to DWP Select Committee. And that’s from one of the lowest public pension base in Europe. The UK is the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world. This obscene piece of political posturing by the Starmer/Reeves axis of inadequacy is supposed to save £1.6bn. it won’t and that is… Read more »
OK, so how would you fund whinger fuel payments? Would you make them a universal benefit thus giving a freebie to pensioners who don’t need them?
How would you fund the NHS?
Would you end the two child benefit cap and, if so, how would you pay for it?
If you answered ‘higher taxes’ to any of those questions you’d be wiped out at the next election. Why? Because the average British voter is stupid.
“Lord Sikka, (a former accountancy professor now in the Lords) also suggested that the Treasury could have taken in £4bn from just four of the largest law firms, “enough to cancel (the) two-child benefit cap (and the ) winter fuel payment cut”.
Lord Sikka told The Independent there seemed to be “no political will” to change the situation.” Understatement of the year.
Everyone expected Labour (Rachel from Accounts) to do this as long overdue. But that is to forget who Rachel from Accounts and Keir from Group Packaging ACTUALLY WORK for. Others most certainly haven’t. A one term government.
“Rachel from Accounts”.
So tell me, do you enjoy belittling women? Holding a woman to a far higher standard than you would ever do for a man, your comment is misogynistic to say the least
Her reputation (and ballooned CV) goes before her, including the raised eyebrow opinions of her previous colleagues. Her own custody of her Commons expenses card led to a forced repayment and rebuke. Her regulation “Big” book on women economists was largely written by her assistants and openly ridiculed by the FT for its widespread plagiarism – some 40 examples as I recall and most lifted from Wiki of all places, not even the primary or secondary texts. You wouldn’t get away with that in a first year essay. Still, it was so “profound” that its now completely unread. Result. She’s… Read more »