DWP state pension means-testing 'on the cards' after Winter Fuel Payment cut

State pensioners have been warned their state pensions could be MEANS TESTED after the Labour Party and Department for Work and Pensions ( DWP ) decisions to means-test Winter Fuel Payments. Dennis Reed, the director of pensioner charity Silver Voices, has issued a warning.

"If the universal Winter Fuel Payment goes the same way as the free TV licence, the next in line will be free prescriptions in England and the free bus pass," he said, adding: "Then means-testing the state pension, or levying national insurance on our private pensions, will also be on the cards.

"It is hypocritical for the Chancellor to suggest that she was forced to decide this policy by the financial situation and that she was reluctant to do it." He went on: "Her job is all about political priorities and she chose to spend far more on meeting the demands of the public sector unions."

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"She also chose not to take on the powerful banks, energy firms and internet giants making obscene profits," he added, discussing Rachel Reeves. "We think this attack on pensioners was a symbolic sop to those think tanks and special advisers who regard all older people as fair game for cuts."

Reeves will tell the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) annual conference in Westminster that no one has offered a better solution to the challenging situation left behind by the previous, Conservative government. “I have heard lots of responses to the government’s first budget but I have heard no alternatives,” she is expected to say.

“We have asked businesses and the wealthiest to contribute more. I know those choices will have an impact. But I stand by those choices as the right choices for our country: investment to fix the NHS and rebuild Britain, while ensuring working people don’t face higher taxes in their payslips.”