Tag Archives: pension

WASPI women win victory over Ombudsman in pension-age change row

The campaigning group Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) has won an out-of-court victory in its battle to get compensation for women born in the 1950s whose pension age has been raised by government decision.

WASPI is not arguing that the pension age should not have been raised, stating that this was done by democratic government decision – but that the way the Department for Work and Pensions provided information about it meant that women were unable to make appropriate choices that they would have made if they had known earlier that their State Pension age would increase, and that this has had emotional and financial impacts on their lives.

The group is arguing for fair, fast and straightforward compensation for the emotional and financial losses – both direct losses and lost opportunities – that women have suffered.

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has been charged with producing three reports. The first was to establish whether there was maladministration by the DWP in failing to inform affected women that they would not receive their pension when they expected to do so, and that they should make appropriate financial plans.

That report has been published and has stated that there was maladministration.

The second report was to establish whether six sample complainants had suffered any direct financial loss because of DWP maladministration, or any loss of opportunities to make different financial choices.

That report was published and stated that none of them had suffered any such losses.

WASPI argued that the Ombudsman’s reasoning was legally flawed and this would impact on decisions affecting all 1950s born women who were victims of the DWP’s maladministration and said it would bring a judicial review if he would not withdraw the Stage 2 report and think again.

A decision last week means the Ombudsman will indeed withdraw that report.

It is now considered to be legally flawed, and a court will be asked to make a quashing order (because the Ombudsman has no power to withdraw a report that has been sent to complainants and MPs).

The Ombudsman will then reconsider the question of injustice in a re-written second report that must be changed to accommodate the agreement that the original report was flawed.

When a new second report is accepted, the process will move on to a third report which will consider what remedies are necessary for the injustices done to 3.6 million women.

It must also consider whether such remedies should be given to the estates of women who have died in the time since the change to their state pension age was announced.

You can find more complete details here.

This Writer’s view is that this is not a total victory; the Ombudsman may merely seek – and find – another excuse to deny women born in the 1950s any compensation for the injustice they have suffered and campaigners need to be aware of that.

And WASPI accepts that it doesn’t speak for all women who have been disadvantaged by the pension age change. Some are campaigning for full compensation – payment of the amount of pension they would have received if the age change had not happened. WASPI does not think the government will accept such demands.

It is a step forward – but the battle for compensation is a long way from being over.

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Sunak’s low effective tax rate speaks volumes about Tory policy

Rishi Sunak: why doesn’t the richest man in the UK pay a tax rate comparable to the rest of us?

Yesterday This Site discussed the fact that Rishi Sunak pays an extremely low effective tax rate – lower than the majority of working people in the UK.

Here’s a bit of evidence that I got my sums right:

Why does he pay such a low rate?

I don’t mean, how is it calculated – we went through that yesterday. I mean, what is the thinking behind ensuring that the UK’s richest man does not pay an equal proportion of his wealth, in taxes, to the average worker?

The answer is easy: In order to starve the beast.

The beast being, in this case, public services.

Look at France. That country is on fire because its government wants to ease the tax burden on its richest people by raising the pension age.

Here, rich people don’t have that burden because they pay low taxes. This makes it possible for a rich person’s government to argue that keeping the pension-age at 65 for men and 60 for women (or even at 65 for both) would increase the tax burden unreasonably.

What they don’t tell you is that, if they operated a truly fair, progressive system, that burden would fall on them and their rich fellows who simply aren’t paying their fair share now.

Rishi Sunak should be paying the average tax rate – certainly by 2025-26 when it is predicted that the rest of us will be paying 35 per cent.

Don’t you agree?

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France riots against pension-age rise. Here’s why the UK isn’t the same

The reason people in the UK don’t riot about the rising pension age: politicians stab them in the back by pretending they could be rich one day, and keeping the pension age down will mean they’d lose the money in taxes given to pay for someone else’s retirement.

Would you like to know why France is on fire over the increase in the pension age there?

It’s really very simple.

Pensions are paid from taxes, and French taxes are progressive – that is, those with more money pay more in tax.

The younger the age at which people retire, the more taxes are needed to support them, and the greater the burden on those with the most money.

So the point of raising the age at which pensions may be claimed is to help the rich keep more of their money.

In France, where working people staged a revolution against rich people who wouldn’t share their wealth, that idea is anathema.

And that is the reason they are rioting in that country.

In France, the emergency services seem not to be quite such puppets of the politicians as in England – so we see such spectacles as large numbers of police stepping down in order to join the protests:

Firefighters, too:

But what about the UK?

We should – but you know why we aren’t?

Because the Tories fool so many of us by claiming that we can be rich too, if we all work hard. It’s a lie.

Nobody who worked for an employer ever got rich – that is, nobody who actually did the work, rather than being an executive, director or suchlike.

Wages for the masses are strictly controlled in order to force you to keep working. In the UK, employers won’t accept that people might actually stay in their jobs and put more value into them if their pay packets were a little larger.

But the pretence paralyses the gullible.

And that’s why nobody in the UK has been rioting about pensions.

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Do you qualify for the 2023-24 ‘cost of living’ payments?

Do you qualify? Well, depending on when you receive any of the benefits and tax credits listed below – or a pension – you might. But all depends on when you’re receiving them.

The Conservative government has announced a new set of ‘cost of living’ payments for people on benefits and low incomes, for 2023-24.

People receiving certain benefits or tax credits will be able to receive up to five payments. These benefits include:

  • income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
  • income-related Employment and Support Allowance
  • Income Support
  • Pension Credit
  • Universal Credit
  • Child Tax Credit
  • Working Tax Credit

Recipients will get payments of £301, £300 and £299 if they are claiming those benefits on certain dates.

You may be entitled to a Disability Cost of Living Payment of £150 if you get any of the following benefits on a certain date:

  • Attendance Allowance
  • Constant Attendance Allowance
  • Disability Living Allowance for adults
  • Disability Living Allowance for children
  • Personal Independence Payment
  • Adult Disability Payment (in Scotland)
  • Child Disability Payment (in Scotland)
  • Armed Forces Independence Payment
  • War Pension Mobility Supplement

It would be paid some time during the summer of 2023.

If you are a pensioner entitled to a Winter Fuel Payment for winter 2023 to 2024, you will get an extra £150 or £300 paid with your normal payment from November 2023.

The full amount of Winter Fuel Payment (including the Pensioner Cost of Living Payment) you will get for winter 2023 to 2024 depends on when you were born and your circumstances during the qualifying dates.

You can get a Winter Fuel Payment for winter 2023 to 2024 if you were born before September 24, 1957.

Qualification for the payments is automatic – you don’t have to apply, and if you receive any communications asking you to apply, the government urges you to report it in any of the appropriate ways described here.

The qualifying dates for each payment have not yet been announced – and will not be until they have passed. The government says this is in an effort to “minimise work disincentives and fraud risk”.

Some of us may have trust issues about that.

You might be able to boost your state pension by tens of thousands of pounds. Here’s how

Every little helps: but a bit of quick work checking your pension entitlement and the amount you need to pay to ensure you get extra cash could earn you a fortune in pounds, rather than pennies, in the long run.

This could help millions of people.

It’s possible that you could boost the amount of money you receive when you start getting the state pension – possible by tens of thousands of pounds.

It takes a bit of doing but it looks well worth it.

And the deadline for doing it has been extended from April 5 to August 31.

I’ll hand you over to Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis:

I’m going to check this. Are you?

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Women in government pension trap are facing extreme financial hardship

WASPI protesters: it seems the government isn’t even bothering to engage with these ladies.

It must have been bad enough when the UK wasn’t in a Tory-created financial crisis, but now the strain on women who were born in the 1950s must be phenomenal.

These are women who weren’t properly informed that instead of retiring at the age of 60, as they expected, the government was raising the age at which they would receive a state pension to 66.

More than 200,000 women have died without receiving satisfaction from the government.

80 per cent of those affected have suffered financial hardship and 30 per cent are in debt. This could have been avoided if they had been properly informed of what was happening and its implications, according to campaigners.

One shocking aspect of this report is that the government hasn’t bothered to engage with campaigners since 2016.

Since then, the effects of Brexit, Covid-19 and the current inflation crisis have harmed millions of people across the UK – including these already-disadvantaged ladies.

But the Tory response is: can’t be bothered.

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Sunak threatens the pensions triple lock – how can he still say he’s ‘compassionate’?

The triple lock ensuring that pensions rise by the highest of 2.5 per cent, average earnings, or inflation is in danger of being dropped by Rishi Sunak’s new Tory government.

It seems the new prime minister, whose personal wealth is greater than that of the King, is not keen to allow pensioners’ payments to rise in line with the cost of living; inflation currently stands at a 40-year high of 10.1 per cent, due to the failures of previous Tory administrations.

His press secretary has merely claimed that Sunak has a record of being “compassionate for the most vulnerable”. This Writer is not convinced that such a claim holds water.

It seems clear that the pensions triple lock – which was a Tory idea, let’s not forget – was never intended to allow payment increases of the kind being demanded now.

It was a lie intended to dupe senior citizens into thinking the Tories support them and therefore into voting Conservative at elections.

It was dropped during the Covid-19 crisis because wages, having fallen, then rose by eight per cent and Sunak refused to pay. That was a special case, though, because the triple lock did not take account of falls in wages; the rise in fact only returned wages to where they were before.

This is not a special case. The cost of living has increased enormously and richer-than-the-King Sunak is indicating that he wants pensioners to be unable to afford to pay their bills any more.

Oh – and Sunak won’t commit to raising state benefits in line with prices, either.

The decisions on these issues will come on November 17, in Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s winter Budget that is replacing a statement that was due on Monday. Hunt has been given more than two weeks’ grace to find a way to make the situation work for pensioners and those on benefits.

Do you honestly think he’ll bother?

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Will Sunak bow to pressure over cost of living – or will he stick to doing the wrong thing?

Rishi Sunak: he knows he’s doing wrong but he’s doing it anyway.

With Parliament about to reconvene with a new legislative programme, Chancellor Rishi Sunak is being urged to (at last) address the cost-of-living crisis.

The British Chambers of Commerce have called for a three-point plan that would slash VAT on energy bills from 20 per cent to five per cent, offer free Covid tests for companies and the reversing of a recent National Insurance hike.

You can read the rationale for it here.

Sunak is making vague noises about tax cuts – which would be just as well, considering his government has inflicted more tax hikes on the UK’s population than any other in decades.

But he hasn’t actually done anything yet.

Instead, it seems, he’s taking billions from pensioners by freezing something called the Lifetime Allowance for five years.

Confused? So was I. Here‘s the lowdown:

The Lifetime Allowance is currently £1,073,100, which may seem substantial to many.

However, many could find themselves propelled over this sum due to the Chancellor’s decision to freeze the Lifetime Allowance for five years.

It is thought a saver who withdraws cash in a lump sum will lose an extra £180,125 to the taxman by 2025.

The figure represents the tax payable on the difference between the frozen lifetime allowance and the £1.4million had the sum been unfrozen.

Apparently this means he’ll take £6 billion off of people, when he’s being asked to let us keep more.

How is that supposed to help?

Source: Rishi Sunak urged to announce emergency budget as living costs spiral

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Guaranteed Minimum Pensions holders set to lose thousands due to DWP disdain

The Tory government has shafted pensioners – again.

Around 11 million people were contracted out of the State Earnings-Related Pensions Scheme by their employer, on condition that they would receive an index-linked guaranteed minimum pension.

This arrangement, for anyone in the private sector, was scrapped when the new state pension was introduced in 2016 – but remains in place for public sector workers.

The decision to scrap it was never mentioned in Parliament or in any Pensions legislation.

Women are the most seriously affected. Everybody involved is losing cash ranging from a few pounds a week to tens of thousands over the lifetime of their pension.

That’s the historical situation.

Now, after two people won £1,250 each in compensation after complaining to the Ombudsman, the government has decided not to ensure that everybody affected – who might also deserve payment – is told.

The Ombudsman recommended action “to ensure that affected individuals receive appropriate communication from the DWP [Department for Work and Pensions] about their state pensions”.

But in response, all the DWP has done is publish a factsheet on the GOV.UK website. It has not informed anybody who is affected by the changes that the factsheet exists, or even put out a press release.

You can read the factsheet here – and by publishing the link, This Site has done more to inform those affected than the UK government.

Taking this into account, it should be no surprise that only 6,922 people have read the factsheet and only four people (according to DWP Permanent Secretary Peter Schofield) have made inquiries about it.

None received any compensation because Schofield said they were not eligible.

So, of a possible 11 million people affected by the GMP change, the DWP’s tailor-made strategy (in response to an Ombudsman’s recommendation, remember) has reached nobody.

As intended?

Read a deeper analysis of the implications here: Rip off: DWP to take no further action to compensate millions who lost thousands of pounds of extra pensions | Westminster Confidential

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DWP blocks study of links between benefit sanctions and death. What are the Tories trying to hide?

‘Bring out your dead’: this satirical image shows public opinion of the limits of DWP concern for people the Tory government department deprives of the money they need to live.

A groundbreaking study of possible links between benefit sanctions and claimant ill-health – including mental illness and suicide – has ground to a halt because Tory ministers are not co-operating.

After making a big show of supporting the Glasgow University research back in 2019, DWP ministers immediately insisted that new security protocols would be required before they released the necessary data.

It took two years for the new protocols to be completed – and when they reached completion last year, the DWP demanded that researchers should apply for the data all over again.

Prof Nick Bailey, who is heading the Glasgow sanctions project, said that had the data been shared as originally agreed with the DWP in 2018, his research would have been in the public domain by early 2020. It is now five years since the research process for the project was supposed to have started and it has yet to get under way.

“The consequence for both policymakers and benefit claimants is we continue to operate an important policy, sanctions, which has potentially substantial consequences for those affected by it but with very little evidence of the impact of the policy, and almost none on the wider impacts,” said Bailey.

A recent Glasgow University paper analysing international studies of sanctions reported “significant associations with increased material hardship and health problems” as well as evidence sanctions “were associated with increased child maltreatment and poorer child wellbeing”.

The DWP has said it is now “actively considering” the data request that was originally made back in 2018 – nearly four years ago.

But what are we – the public – to make of this?

Does the Department for Work and Pensions have something to hide – such as complicity in the deaths of thousands of benefit claimants?

This Writer – and This Site – forced the government to reveal that thousands of people had died of unexplained causes within two weeks of being denied their benefits, all the way back in 2015.

Nothing was done to research the deaths – or to find out what had happened to people who had been denied benefits after the two-week period the DWP monitored.

And that was nearly seven years ago.

It seems to me that the DWP is deliberately concealing information on behalf of its masters in the Conservative government; the demand for extraordinary security procedures is just an excuse.

And it seems to me that there can be only one reason for hiding the information – that there is a link between benefit sanctions and claimant deaths, and DWP bosses have known about it for many years.

I challenge the DWP – and the Conservative government – to prove me wrong.

Source: DWP blocks data for study of whether benefit sanctions linked to suicide | Benefits | The Guardian

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