'Restricting the Winter Fuel Payment to those most in need was sensible and long overdue,' says Stephen Pound

What I am about to say will cause many of you to spill your tea so may I ask you to hold on tight and allow me to present an opinion that is at variance with pretty much all of the establishment orthodoxy on the subject.

Limiting the winter fuel allowance to those most in need was a sensible, serious, and long-overdue piece of work.

Stay with me if you can bear to!

When Gordon Brown introduced a raft of measures to support pensioners back in the late 1990s there was strong agreement within the then government that a minimum income guarantee for pensioners was more than fair and should have been introduced years ago.

The debate about the free television licences for the over 75s and the winter fuel allowance of £200 – rising to £300 – as well as the Christmas bonus centred around the principle of universality.

Why, said the critics, should the late Her Majesty be receiving these payments when it was hard to convince the House that she was in fuel poverty or in desperate need of assistance with her television licence to watch endless repeats on the BBC?

At the time it was suggested that the administrative costs of targeting the new benefits to those most in need exceeded the amounts that would be saved and the usually thrifty Gordon Brown won the day for the considerable number of universal benefits.

Fast forward to the most recent Conservative government and the decision to withdraw the free television licence from all except those in receipt of benefits.

The then prime minister made the persuasive case for targeting benefits on grounds of fairness – did millionaires deserve free television – and also on the advances in software systems that now allow the Department of Work and Pensions to identify those not in receipt of benefits who would no longer get the TV licence.

The legislation sailed through with scarcely a squeak of protest.

Consider my own case. I was frankly embarrassed to receive £200 in November and tried to return it to the DWP.

As this was not possible, I arranged for it to go to the Salvation Army – suitably topped up – every year and this can be confirmed with them if there are people who doubt the word of a former MP.

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I am delighted to lose this sum from my bank account as I know all too well that what the nation desperately needs is investment in policing, prisons, the armed forces, the NHS, education and much more. I would far rather see public services improved than gain the allowance.

When people talk about the suffering of our senior citizens, they seem to forget that we use public transport, we use the NHS, we look to the police for protection, and we rely more by the day on those public services that were so cruelly underfunded in recent years.

If restricting the Winter Fuel Payment to those most in need supports them then I’m all in favour.

If you’ve read on to the end of this piece, then I thank you and hope that you will accept that while we may have wildly differing opinions, it is essential that we allow each other’s voices to be heard.

I respect the views of others and only ask in return that you do the same. Strong healthy debate is essential to democracy, and it sometimes seems that it exists only on GB News!