Liberal Democrats fight to save Winter Fuel Payments

Attempts by Liberal Democrats to make clear York’s opposition to the Labour Government’s decision to withdraw the Winter Fuel Allowance from thousands of local pensioners have been thwarted by Labour councillors.

A Lib Dem motion submitted to last week’s Full Council meeting called on the Labour Executive to back the campaign by Age UK to abandon plans to cut the Winter Fuel Allowance and to reconsider their axing of funding for Age UK York which has led to the popular Day Clubs closing at the end of this month.

However, Labour councillors submitted a “wrecking amendment” which substantially changed the meaning of the motion, turning it into a motion in favour of Labour’s means testing of winter fuel payments, against any mitigation of their changes and deleted all mention of the Labour council’s cut to Day Clubs. The amendment also cut the Council’s obligation to write to all 1,639 pensioners who currently are eligible to receive pensioner credit but do not currently down to 470.

York Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Health, Wellbeing and Adult Social Care, Councillor Carol Runciman said:

“Councillors have been inundated with residents who are upset about the loss of the Winter Fuel Allowance and are fearful about how they will cope at a time when energy bills are set to rise again. For Labour to twist the intent of our motion so that it ends up supporting the cuts is beyond belief.

“The most insulting part of Labour’s amendment is that they cut down the amount of work they have to do to contact pensioners that are entitled to pensioner credit. Under their proposals there will be a thousand forgotten pensioners who will not be contacted or provided the support they need to claim pensioner credit and therefore receive winter fuel payments.

“Labour have lost their way in York. Residents would have expected that Labour would have voted for action that would alleviate pensioner poverty like refunding pensioners for the Green Bin Tax, reversing the cut to Age UK Day Clubs and replacing the much-missed Dial and Ride service. Instead, they stripped these measures from our motion.

“Only the Liberal Democrats are standing up for York’s most vulnerable residents.”