Here is an exam question for a politics course – and some notes to help you answer it.
Q: compare and contrast the winter fuel payments to pensioners with CAP payments to farmers.
Some notes to help your revision:
- similar annual sums of money are involved – around £2bn per annum
- all pensioners are eligible for winter fuel payments, almost all farmers (all owning land that was eligible in 2001 essentially) are eligible for farm income support payments
- neither payments are means-tested but winter fuel payments may be in future
- pensioner households can receive between £200 and £300 per annum depending on how many pensioners there are and their age; farming families can receive between a few hundred pounds per annum and hundreds of thousands of pounds per annum depending on how large the farm is (the larger the farm, the more you get).
- there has been a big discussion in the media, prompted by the political manifestos about winter fuel payments but none whatsoever about what we do with farm payments after Brexit has meant Brexit (less than two years away) although the party that wants to means-test winter fuel payments has said that farm payments will remain constant for the life of the next parliament.
Whatever you do on 8 June – don’t vote Conservative.
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I was sat on a moor top yesterday looking for breeding Merlins with a very good friend, as always whilst waiting of for some action we discussed all sorts of things including politics. Neither of us can understand why ordinary folk such as ourselves would ever vote Tory, even if they were not interested in the environment ( environmentalists, conservationists and nature lovers should never vote Tory for quite obvious reasons). The current T manifesto attacks the education of ordinary folk via the loss of free healthy primary school dinners for all, the bringing back of elitist grammar schools (and yes like Mark I went to one), appalling university fees without grants. If you are older like an increasing majority the loss of triple lock on state pensions and the proposals for elderly care frankly could detrimentally affect all of us. Hard brexit is a euphemism for we are going whatever the deal (I like the Lib Dems on this). So whatever you vote in June if you are just ordinary folk like most of us don’t vote for the bloody Tories( they’ll bring back the workhouse next!) or for that matter for the little Englanders in UKIP lots of them are closet racists.
Your point re farm payments is well made.
However I strongly support means testing of winter fuel payments, just as I support making people use of a good chunk of the capital asset of their property to pay for social care if they need it. I am happy to pay taxes to help poorer pensioners. But with the odd exception all the pensioners I know are on retirement incomes far greater than any salary I will ever earn plus they are sitting on an enormous unearned untaxed capital asset in the form of their property.
Right now in the UK average pensioner disposable incomes exceed average disposable workers incomes for the first and probably last time ever. 1 in 6 UK pensioners is a millionaire or married to one. And yet these these people still need winter fuel allowances?! I think not. This is the wealthiest generation of pensioners there will ever be in human history. Meantime I’m going to “retire” into poverty.
Why the hell should I pay more tax so they can leave even more money to their kids and lock me and mine out of the housing market even more effectively than we already are?
It’s not like they got to own expensive houses and have generous pensions through working harder than I have – they were just born at the right time and with a bit of luck have been able to ride the wave.
About time the farmers worked out which side their bread is buttered too…
Interestingly, many of these pensioners (myself included grew up at a time when higher rates of income tax (supertax) were much higher. Think how much the government could raise, if the higher rate of tax was the same as 1950s and 60s (90%). And think how good the NHS would be if UK didn’t waste money on ‘defense’ systems that will never be used.
I live in an ex council house have a hefty mortgage and no it was not bought from the council but other owners, I only own half my sister who is much wealthier than I owns the other half and pays nowt! I get the state pension plus a small civil service pension paid for heavily over 21 years of service. If I move to share a her house with my partner I will get half the value of this house to invest to help me survive on my meagre income in the countryside where everything is more expensive. I might be happy to pay for any social care I need from my assets if the effing rich were doing the same. If the state had taken all but £100, 000 of the late duke of Westminsters estate fine but they do not and are going to take a much higher proportion of average income earners assets than they will from the rich including the bloody feather bedded private industry that is farming. Average pensioner means nothing in this context because the figures are skewed by a small proportion of very rich pensioners, the huge majority live on very poor incomes. When the rich and super rich pay their fair share ( which they have never ever done and never will under the effing Tories) I will agree with you but not until and I will not be holding my breath.
Like I said, happy to pay tax to support poor pensioners or indeed others in need. But in my experience- and the stats seem to bear out my experience- it is not the case that “the huge majority live on very poor incomes”. Anyway that’s not really relevant, since we’re explicitly talking only about those not on “very poor incomes” be that 10% or40%.
Jbc -nothing you say can have any credibility when you state that 1 in 6 pensioners is, or is married to, a millionaire.
The Pensions Policy Institute estimates that there were 12,530,000 pensioners in the UK in 2016. Using your ratio would suggest there were 2,088,333 millionaires in the UK. It is estimated that some 961,000 households had assets in excess of 1 million.
I’ll track down the source but it was a reputable one. And you did all read the bit where I said I am happy to pay taxes to support poor pensioners didn’t you?
961000 household have assets of over £1m – I very very strongly doubt that so few do, given property price inflation, but let’s accept the assertion for now. If we assume for the moment that each household in that bracket has 2 people – a big simplification I know – then that’s 1.9 m people who are millionaires or live with one. Which is not a million miles from 2.1 m.
Let’s say that only half of the millionaires are retired. That’s still 1m millionaire households that you say a should get winter fuel allowance and whose care I should pay more tax to fund. That I should pay more tax so they can pass on all that wealth to their kids. A Million millionaires living off working people on average incomes. How is that fair? How is that position left wing?
I’ve remembered my source, by the way – the NAO, not know for political bias.
How can anything you say have any credibility when you say that a struggling family on £25k should pay more tax so that millionaires can avoid using their own money to support themselves in old age and instead keep it all to leave to their already privileged kids? …it is possible to have moral integrity and still disagree with your position you know.
An ex council house near me is on market for £380000 The young often live with parents as property prices are extremely high where I live as rent for a studio flat one room +bathroom & kitchen was over £750 per month means they can’t afford to rent/save to buy home. Things are even worse in London boroughs.
I think that Mark was raising a point about maybe means-testing the current system of farm subsidy. Its not a forum for criticising pensioners.
My wife and I both worked for most of our lives paying all the taxes and other charges we’re all familiar with but she now needs care 24/7 which I currently supply with only minimal support. She needs help to dress, undress, eat and to carry out all those normal bodily functions we take for granted and can no longer effectively communicate. This is because she has an illness, Alzheimer’s disease. Someone of her age should expect on average another 20 years of life but, because of her illness, will have a much-reduced lifespan. There’s no effective treatment and the only prospect is that, if and when I am no longer able to cope, she will need some form of institutional care. If she, heaven forbid, had a form of cancer then she could rightly access very expensive medication without any question that she should pay the full costs of her treatment either now or at the end of her life. I know that there are problems in financing such care but please don’t tell me that the Tory plans aren’t a tax on those with dementia.
As for means-testing the winter fuel allowance, it is well established that means testing will mean many of those, often the poorest, will not apply (and so not receive) the money and the savings are less since you have to pay for the screening. Making the payment universal is the most effective way to reach everyone in need and this can be recouped from the wealthiest via the tax system.
Well done Mark for pointing out these inconsistencies in approach by the Tories. It is interesting that farms and landowners will get the same for at least the life of a parliament but pensioners wont. ‘Strong and stable’ or ‘fair’? Codswallop, it’s the same old institutionalised greed and self interest. Got to keep trying to tell people!
Mark,very good let me surprise you i agree with all your five points and also see good sense in all the first five comments.
Now my problems start,although I thought Clement Attlee did a good job saying he was giving farmers a more generous subsidy(I read that so suppose it must be true?)can I imagine Jeremy in charge of negotiating Brexit??.
This time I would cherish your advice.
Best wishes