I mention this only because the Allowance was referred to again in a different context this week: during David Cameron's own address. Just take a look at the following passage:
‘You think about tuition fees, and house prices, the cost of a deposit, and wonder how our children will cope. Of course, government can help – and this one is. We have cut petrol duty, kept the winter fuel allowance and kept cold weather payments.’
The excerpt is taken from the 'anxiety' section of the Prime Minister's speech in which he attempted to echo the deepest fears of voters and then allay them. As James Forsyth reveals in the current issue of The Spectator (subscribers here), when chief political strategist, Andrew Cooper, arrived in Downing Street he told the Prime Minister that "voters’ greatest concern was that their children wouldn’t have the opportunities they’d had". And, sure enough, Cabinet ministers' conference speeches have been peppered with references to “future generations” and “intergenerational issues” — as you can see, David Cameron's was no different.
But look again at the excerpt and you might perceive a problem with it. The anxieties the Prime Minister identifies affect younger people in British society, but the solutions he suggests really aren't relevant. Neither cold weather payments nor petrol duty changes affect the life chances of young adults and children in particular. The reference to the Winter Fuel Allowance is even more bizarre since it is aimed not at children or even parents but squarely at the older section of society — you qualify for it when you turn 60. And Steve Norris has good reason to think it a colossal waste of public money.
The Allowance is a universal benefit costing around £2.7 billion designed to address the problem that every year excessive numbers of elderly citizens die in the cold. It will be worth about £200 for households aged over 60 and £300 for households over 80 this winter. A huge chunk of that money never gets to the vulnerable, however. Instead, it is handed to a swathe of recipients who really don't need it, like Steve Norris — who also happens to be Chairman of Jarvis PLC these days.
Two-thirds of the members of the House of Lords receive the benefit also. And, last year about 65,000 ex-pats living across Europe including in Spain, Italy and Greece received it even though the weather is obviously warmer where they live. This year, Pensions minister Steve Webb confirmed in Parliament that EU law prevented Britain from withdrawing ex-pat access to the Winter Fuel Allowance.
And all this must seem iniquitous to those sections of society about whom David Cameron claims to be 'anxious'. Younger generations are paying more for housing, more for university education and are more likely to be unemployed than any other section of society of working age today. The Prime Minister obviously didn't do justice to their concerns and those of their parents by nodding at their problems and then offering a smorgasbord of irrelevant spending decisions as evidence that he is helping. In fact, he looked cynical. If David Cameron wanted to help future generations he would means-test the Winter Fuel Allowance, not defend it. Right now it doesn't help "children to cope"; it helps Steve Norris to drink Claret.