You want obscene, Mr Smith?

‘It’s absurd and offensive that tax-payers are funding these payments (Winter Fuel Allowance) for people who have retired to the Mediterranean and enjoy warmer weather… we’re able to satisfy EU rules as well as prevent this obscene waste of taxpayers’ money.’ – Ian Duncan Smith

An open letter - please feel free to copy and distribute as you see fit...

Dear Mr Ian Duncan Smith

Even though I am an ex-pat resident in Spain, I’m still paying UK taxes. And as a tax-payer, I find your comments offensive.

It is obscene that there should even be a need for a Winter Fuel Payment for pensioners. If the state pension was adequate, then this payment would not be needed. In the European pension payment stakes, Britain was 21^st out of 27 countries; Spain was in the top ten.

It is obscene that your so-called ‘temperature based eligibility’ is blatantly manipulating statistics to obtain a vote-catching result.

It is obscene that tax-payers’ money is squandered on MPs’ dubious expenses and heating bills.

It is obscene that tax-payers’ money finances fact-finding jollies abroad for MPs.

It is obscene that the right to vote in our home country is removed after residing abroad for over fifteen years; if we still pay British taxes, then we should have the right to vote: taxation without representation is unjust (and lost us certain colonies on the other side of the Atlantic).

It is obscene that taxpayers’ money is sent abroad to India, where their poverty is ignored while they spend millions on space exploration.

It is obscene that tax-payers’ money is sent abroad to finance warlords and despots.

It is obscene that the government makes a profit on passport applications from British citizens abroad.

My earlier blogs on the subject

http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com.es/2013/11/fiddling-with-figures-while-winter-fuel.html

 
http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com.es/2013/10/lets-get-political-winter-fuel-payments.html

Petitions are being completed as I write, but do we really believe that the mandarins in Whitehall will take note or even care a jot? They've got their gold-plated pensions, after all, and won't need to be concerned about getting cold in winter evenings.

Cold Comfort-2

They’re doing it again! Griping about the winter fuel payments to ex-pat pensioners abroad.

I could understand it if a sound argument was being made. But it isn’t. It’s dressed up to appeal to be a vote-catcher in UK at the cost of the soft targets, pensioners abroad; politics of envy, judging by some comments, albeit misguided.

The above article is also online, here.
 
The online article is illustrated with a stock photo of a pensioner couple playing chess in the sun and another photo shows a relatively crowded beach with sunbathers. Not exactly winter images, but to be expected from this biased quarter, the Daily Mail. Right now, we walk around with coats and boots on, but that kind of photo would spoil the subliminal image the Mail wishes to purvey!

And of course the sensationalist figures don’t tell it as it is, maybe because it isn’t simple, or maybe because those figures seem better for the argument: the payment is £100 per person, not £200 as implied; or £200 for a single person if living alone, or £200 per couple. (Yes, it increases with age up to 80, and the maximum claimable is £300). These are the UK government’s rules, not ours; a UK government whose incumbents are paid for by the taxpayer, among whom are thousands of aggrieved ex-pat British pensioners.

There are a lot of reader comments on the Mail online article. A certain number pander to the myth that if you’ve emigrated abroad, you must be rich; others don’t seem to realise that we ex-pats have paid our taxes and many still continue to do so, but see no return for our investment in our country.

And of course the writer, James Chapman, Political Editor, cites the same old statistics -

“But in December and January temperatures in Spain can reach 17C (63F). There are almost 28,625 recipients in France, many of them in the south where temperatures in winter are often a comfortable 13C (57F)’ – figures which I refuted in my earlier blog here

The DM article states that ‘Mr Duncan Smith said countries where the average annual temperature is higher than the warmest region in the UK – the South West at 5.6C – will be affected.’ This is nonsense – ‘average annual temperature’? What months are involved in this temperature test, or is it the whole year? January and February? How many years is the average taken over? If UK is blessed with five years of warm winters, will the winter fuel allowance be stopped for UK residents since the average will be higher than 5.6C?

The sun is shining outside while I’m sitting typing this, at 4pm on 2 February, and the gas fire is on, because it’s cold. It will get colder. Tonight it’s expected to be 5.0C. Averages can mean whatever the user of the statistics wants them to mean (see the report above). Cold kills old people – usually around about 2am, when the body is at its most vulnerable. It has little to do with how much sunshine occurs in the afternoon.

Hailstones, Costa Blanca

Mr Duncan Smith is quoted as saying, ‘The winter fuel payment is intended to help British pensioners with heating costs.’ My wife and I, like thousands of other ex-pats, are British pensioners – and we’re also British taxpayers. Oh, thanks for your consideration, Mr Duncan Smith!

He adds, ‘From winter 2015/16, we are changing the rules so that it no longer goes to people in European countries with an average winter temperature high than the warmest part of the UK.’ Interesting, they’re changing the rules – and simultaneously attempting to block attempts by ex-pats to vote in UK elections (since, after all, we pay their wages via our taxes).

 
Change the rules, indeed! Does that go for MPs’ claims on expenses, too? You know, those MPs with generous pensions who don’t have to concern themselves about heating their home (any one or three of them).

Disraeli wrote, ‘The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word – dissimulation.’ Well, it’s not only in the East any longer, it’s in Westminster. And it stinks.

Cold comfort

Yesterday, I woke to find my left arm didn’t want to rise above shoulder height without great pain, and typing was painful too. Lends a new meaning to ‘writing is pain’. So my time at the keyboard has been limited.

I must have pulled a muscle while carrying a couple of 12.5kg butane gas cylinders – required to heat our home in this warm climate that Ian Duncan Smith and his minions envision.

 

The e-petition 'Stop the Governments victimisation of pensioners living abroad who have contributed to the welfare state by withdrawing their winter fuel payment' recently reached 14,796 signatures and a response has been made to it.

As this e-petition has received more than 10,000 signatures, the relevant Government department have provided the following response:

“The Government remains committed to protecting key support for older people for the life of this Parliament, in line with Coalition Agreement. Winter Fuel Payments are non-contributory and were originally introduced to give older people in the UK the reassurance they can keep warm during cold weather. However, following a European Court judgment, Winter Fuel Payments are now also made to eligible people living outside the UK in another European Economic Area (EEA) Member State and Switzerland. To help return to the original policy intention, the Government intends to bring in an eligibility criterion, effective from winter 2015/16, based on country of residence with Winter Fuel Payments going only to eligible people living in EEA countries with colder climates.” This e-petition remains open to signatures and will be considered for debate by the Backbench Business Committee should it pass the 100,000 signature threshold.”

In other words, nothing has changed; they're not listening. Am I surprised?

So, in effect, as predicted in my blog here, they’ll play with statistics to exclude expat pensioners who have and indeed in many cases still are paying UK taxes. Their get-out clause is that the winter fuel payment is ‘non-contributory’ which suggests that tax-payers didn’t contribute, which is a load of baloney, since any money that the government hands out is from the taxpayer – past and present.

Cold comfort, indeed.

 

Fiddling with figures, while winter fuel burns

I’m getting a bit fed up with the EU-bashing, sneering-at-expat attitude of the Daily Mail. Doubtless the response of the readers of other UK newspapers will say, “What else do you expect?” Well, all UK papers have their good points, and their bad; several run laudable crusades, and several overstep the line, hence the pillorying they’ve endured from certain celebrities and MPs. I still side with the argument to maintain a free press, even if they do get it wrong from time to time. And the old adage about you can’t believe everything you read in a newspaper holds true – whether that’s the Mail or the Guardian or all those in between these two extremes. Particularly when they quote figures to back up their agenda.

In my blog of 5 October I suggested that certain UK sections, notably government ministers, would deliberately mess with ‘temperature tests’ in their bid to curtail expat British tax payers’ winter fuel payments. It hasn’t taken long: the Mail did it this Thursday, 14 November (second column).

 

 

And on Friday, 15 November the Mail published an amusing cartoon, based on one of the previous day’s news items.

 

This is my letter of complaint to the Mail, which wasn’t printed, of course.:

As a retired expat living in Spain, I take exception to Mac’s cartoon. I admire Mac’s skill, and yes, I can see the joke. But it panders to a mistaken image of retirees that borders on the offensive, as well as being misguided in fact. I doubt if any retirees would take a dip in a swimming pool during the winter months. And not all buy vino by the van-load. And we certainly wouldn’t be spending the winter fuel payment on wine, but on bottled gas to keep warm (see below).

Your sensational page 2 item (Thursday, November 14, ‘Cost of winter fuel perk for expats in sun soars by 70%’) perpetuates the myth.

Concerning the UK Winter fuel payments, ‘Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith yesterday said… huge increase in UK winter fuel payments equates to a near doubling in costs to the British taxpayer and that is wholly unacceptable… we are not prepared to sit back and allow hard-working taxpayers’ money to be used in this way.’

Clearly, Mr Smith has forgotten that many British expats still pay UK taxes, and I’m one of them. And we’ve been hard-working throughout our adult life, paying our taxes, before retiring. If the fuel payment is a ‘perk’ for all British taxpayers, then where they live shouldn’t matter.

Indeed, I take issue when dubious science in the form of ‘temperature tests’ is applied. Your article is a prime example of supplying favourable data to bolster the anti-expat argument. You state ‘… Spain, where temperatures in December and January can reach 63F (17C)…’ You’re being selective. A reality check online would show that for the Costa Blanca, where I and many expats live, the temperatures for December and January are very different: December (High=17, low=7), January (High= 16, low= 5) – that’s ten or more degrees lower than you cite. 

Anyone with a grain of geographical knowledge knows that while days in Spain may be pleasantly warm in winter, evenings are cold. It’s a little disingenuous to apply a ‘temperature test’ at midday, which is what you have quoted.

In winter, the houses in Spain still require heating. This heating is in the main supplied by bottled gas, whose prices have increased considerably over the last six years, thanks to green taxes. My bottled gas bill for the winter 2011-12 amounted to 1,160 euros (about £981).

 
Through their UK taxes, most British pensioners living in Spain and claiming the fuel payments, actually pay towards Mr Iain Duncan Smith’s and all civil servants’ wages. It seems that expats are considered a soft target. Yet these same pensioners paid into the system. Since the rules entitle them to a monetary benefit, why should Mr Smith see fit to penalise these same taxpayers? A cynic might consider that it’s political expediency with small risk at the next election.

In conclusion, I always have the option of no longer buying the expensive Daily Mail – that should go a long way to paying for my gas bottles.

Footnote to this blog: All of Europe is currently experiencing arctic blasts of cold weather. Ours in the Costa Blanca today was as low as 3 degrees. It's naïve of me to think so, but if figures are going to be used in an argument, then I'd expect them to be right!

 

 

Let’s get political – Winter Fuel Payments

Winter Fuel Payment is a contentious issue in the UK – and in Europe, if it comes to that.

Winter Fuel Payment – about £100 (about 116 euros) per year per individual - is a universal benefit paid to overs 60s each year to offset the high cost of heating during the winter months. Higher rates apply for older ages. The biggest bill for winter fuel payments in Europe – outside the UK – is for expats in Spain, followed by France, according to the Department for Work and Pensions figures. In the winter of 2011-12, fuel payments to expat pensioners in Spain was £5.78 million (about 6.7 euros).

Costa Blanca, February

 

Back in 2008, a Home Office Minister wanted government lawyers to find ways around European law so he could stop winter fuel payments to thousands of pensioners living in the EU. Yet another instance where government mandarins don’t do their homework but think they can get a few votes, particularly by appealing to the politics of envy. That didn’t work. In fact, the EU told the Home Office in no uncertain terms that the allowance should be paid without pre-existing conditions, otherwise they were being discriminatory. I have a vested interest, as I’ve lived in Spain since 2003 and first claimed the allowance last winter (2012-13).

Now, the subject is rearing its head again. Chancellor George Osborne advocates that a ‘temperature test’ should be applied to restrict elderly UK pensioners living in warmer countries from receiving the ‘benefit’ after August 2015.

On the face of it, he’s trying to save the country money, resources are limited, after all. He's probably also hoping it will win votes at the next election. Yet he is applying questionable logic in doing so.

 

 

Resources are limited

We’ve already detected a trend as the world’s population gets older and lives longer. Governments are becoming alarmed at the subsequent pension costs. They start to move the goal posts, shifting the qualifying age, changing the rules. The winter fuel payment issue is another example of this. I can’t argue against them changing the rules, per se. I do take issue with them when they attempt to apply dubious science, in the form of ‘temperature tests’.

Costa Blanca, February

Granted, Spain is much warmer than the UK in the winter months, but that’s during the daytime. Evenings in Spain are cold, as any student of geography would confirm. It’s a little disingenuous to apply a ‘temperature test’ at midday, for example. (The photos here were taken after a hailstorm in February, 2005; pretty, aren't they?).

Hailstones, Costa Blanca

 

Fact. The houses in Spain are not built to retain heat so they still require heating. This heating is in the main supplied by bottled gas and electric heating systems, whose prices have increased considerably over the last six years, thanks to those green taxes. Indeed, expat residents acclimatise and their blood thins so, like the elderly in the UK, they feel the cold more than visiting tourists; walk around in the daytime and you’ll see locals fully clothed, not wearing shorts, while tourists are in T-shirts and shorts. My bottled gas bill for the winter 2011-12 amounted to 1,160 euros (about £981) Shame, they shouldn’t have moved here then, comes Nasty’s response.

Fact. Most pensioners living in Spain are here not only because of the climate, which is considered healthier. They live here because they can’t afford to live in the UK since Gordon Brown raided their pensions. Nasty says, They’re lucky to have a pension, some of us have to work till we’re 70 now!

Fact. Most, if not all, of in excess of 25,600 pensioners living in Spain and claiming the fuel payments actually pay the Chancellor’s and all civil servants’ wages through their taxes. Nasty keeps quiet, perhaps he’s never paid any taxes?

Fact. These same pensioners paid into the system and since the rules entitle them to a monetary benefit, why should he see fit to curtail it simply by virtue of where they live? Since the balmy climate argument doesn’t hold water, perhaps it’s simple envy? Nasty stamps his foot.

The Chancellor sees the continuation of these payments as a problem. The problem is in fact the Home Office and the Treasury and their constant attempts at chipping away at the inalienable rights of expat British who pay their salaries, a fact they’re uncomfortable to acknowledge.

I wonder how much the Government pays its lawyers to ‘get around’ or ‘subvert’ laws. And I wonder too how comfortable their eventual pensions will be, compared to the pensions of those expats living in Spain.