I was very surprised to receive a letter from the DWP this morning informing me that my winter fuel allowance payment will be £500.
I thought that once Britain fully left the EU, as I live in Luxembourg, all those sorts of discretionary payments would cease along with increases in pension payments, just as they do if you move somewhere like Brazil or to some other exoticretirement destination.
I guess somewhere in the small print of Blojob's "Dustbin Ready Deal" there must have been some stuff about mutual continuation of extra payments to pensioners. I'm surprised that the band of small minded fascists like Frost et al who negotiated the deal let extravagance like that creep into the text!
@Paulos_the_fog haha that's nice but I'd hesitate to attribute to design that which might adequately be explained by incompetence!
Mind you, if the filthy tory scum find a way remain in power, I imagine the pension will soon be restricted to those who live in the hell-hole that the UK is rapidly becoming, if indeed they don't abolish it completely!
The UK pension is already the most miserly, most niggardly in the entire developed world so nothing would surprise me!
Over here in Luxembourg which has one of the most generous state pension schemes in the world, the average pension pay-out is around £800/week (depending on the exchange rate). You don't see pensioners over here riding on the buses - they driving around in brand new BMWs.
The absolute minimum pay-out is around £350/week (for someone who has worked a full 40 year career) and the maximum for someone who has been a top earner for their entire career is around £1600/week.
The system here is contributions dependent; the contributions being a fixed percentage of your salary deducted at source.
@Paulos_the_fog wait so that minimum pension is about double the uk state pension? remarkable! and people of that age are considered the core demographic for Tory support, right? I never understand how anyone decides to vote for them, but every time I hear something like this I feel even more confused 😂
Yes, double sounds about right but bear in mind that is the MINIMUM! Most people get far more than that; the average pension pay-out being around £800 /week, as I said.
I get £370/week for only 11 year's contributions to the pensions system but OK, I was earning quite well so my contributions were pretty high.
Over here they have a bizarre system (bizarre if you're a tory). If you don't earn much, your deductions are quite low but if you are a high earning, single taxpayer you get thoroughly spanked by the taxman. Whereas in the UK, if you are a low wage earner you get taxed to death but if you are rich you can pay accountants to make sure you only pay a pittance!
The problem with Britain is there are still millions of people raised on an exclusive diet of 'British is best' and when confronted with the reality that, in the matter of pensions, 'Britain is the worst in the developed world', they refuse to believe it!
@Paulos_the_fog yes, it seems British exceptionalism, or perhaps more to the point, English exceptionalism, has a lot to answer for, but it's still remarkable that it can lead people to actively vote so directly against their own personal material interests
@freeDomForTooting
Well, it's not like I am hiding my true location from them or anything of that sort! My UK pension is paid into my Luxembourg bank account and the address they have for correspondence and to which, from time to time, they send letters requesting that I prove that I am still alive which proof is duly furnished by the lovely ladies in my local council offices IN LUXEMBOUG, is the same one to which they sent the letter this morning.
If they have got it wrong - it's nothing to do with me!