The 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.
