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MP champions winter fuel payments

MP champions winter fuel paymentsThe termination of fuel allowance payments took place last month. It will hit pensioners in Portugal, Spain, France, Greece, Malta, Gibraltar and Cyprus from September.

The move was enabled by a statutory instrument put before Parliament but without debate.

But now the Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale is planning to use a rare parliamentary technique to halt the termination. If sufficient MPs sign what is known as a “prayer” to register their opposition to the change, the Government may decide that a Parliamentary debate is merited.

Last year some 139,000 pensioners abroad claimed the winter fuel allowance for a total of £22 million. The record sum seemed to put the frighteners on Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, who said: “It's absurd and offensive that taxpayers are funding these payments for people who have retired to the Mediterranean and enjoy warmer weather.”

It is expected that the Government’s jiggled temperature assessment (such as including tropical regions of France) will cut payments to some 95,000 pensioners.

Sir Roger urged people concerned to write to their UK MP at their last UK address and ask them to sign the Early Day Motion 695 (parliament.uk/edm/2014-15/695).

He explained that for “wholly inexplicable reasons” the Motion is the only device to propel a prayer.

“Interested parties should indicate the personal effect that the removal of WFA will have upon them," he advised.

He warned there was no guarantee of success but “the cause is just and it is worth a try”.

The Early Day Motion has so far been signed by just two MP, Sir Roger and Sir Peter Bottomley, Conservative for Worthing West.

“There is a widespread and fallacious view that expat UK citizens are all stinking rich and sitting on yachts in Nice or Cannes drinking gin and tonic. Many are, in fact, living under harsh conditions, cold, unable to return to the UK and on the poverty line. To suggest otherwise and then to use French Caribbean territories to 'massage' the winter temperature figures is, frankly, offensive", Sir Roger said.

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Comments  

+1 #5 thomas kim acott 2016-01-13 16:29
I live just a few miles south Of Lisbon Portugal and during the winter months my wife,s 93 year old mother needs heating to keep warm and during the summer months needs air con to keep cool. Both cold and heat can be fatal to elderly people.
-5 #4 karl blore again 2015-01-26 10:26
what IDS ( short for idiots ) does not understand is, when brits go on winter holidays walking around in their shorts and teeshirts, you would think they would notice the locals walking aroung in their overcoats and scarves, dont they understand that the locals and folks who have lived here a couple of years have much thinner blood and feel the cold more, and just as much as those in the uk,have to have the heating on during the winter months. :-*
-4 #3 J M Wood 2015-01-25 11:35
It is freezing in most homes in the Algarve during the damp, winter season. No, we are not sitting on our yachts drinking Gin and tonics!! We are huddled around a much needed wood burning stove. What do you think we need for such a stove. A ton of wood!!!
-2 #2 zookro 2015-01-22 12:21
so Chez...now you live in Portugal do you do the same? ;-)
Never heard of people using central heating in the summer, many can't afford it in the winter here. I live in the centre and we've had the coldest winter in 8 years....frost and sub-zero temps overnight. In the north the snow has closed schools. Nothing like the UK Mr IDS eh?
-1 #1 chez 2015-01-21 11:49
Just read the following post on Expat Focus, "

Before moving to Portugal, I was employed by a company whose sole function was to provide accommodation and management of asylum seekers for the Home Office. It was not uncommon for me to visit properties in summertime where all the windows were wide open and the central heating, paid for by HM Government, was on at full blast. My company, the smaller of four companies in the UK offering the same service, had a turnover of £20+ million"

I think I'll lose my learn Urdu, lose my passport and jump on a ferry at Calais :P

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