The Great Winter Fuel Debate - Part Deux

Today's news highlights the latest discriminatory practices put in place by a Conservative-led coalition - that of winning the first round of legal challenge to the "spare room subsidy" in relation to disabled people, despite the High Court's criticisms that the government has not done enough to provide for disabled children. Morally-compassed individuals can only hope that follow-on legal challenges will result in a bloody nose for IDS and his DWP cohorts, whose bully-boy tactics can only be compared to that of Flashman in Tom Brown's School Days - and is probably well representative of the Victorian values of many Tory MPs.

You do not need much imagination to envisage the Cabinet sitting around the table in Number 10 in animated conversation on what popular policies are needed to guarantee all out victory in 2015: immigration; in-out EU referendum; benefit scroungers; defenseless disabled; oh, and yes, those bloody expats - what to do with them?

Well, we know from 'Boy' George Osborne's recent Spending Review (and my earlier blog on the matter) that a soft target is the Winter Fuel Allowance (WFA) currently received by qualifying pensioner expats and, since Osborne's decision to end payments using a "Temperature Link" format, a document has been released revealing the system to be used and what areas of Europe will be affected.

And this is where it gets very interesting for any geography nerds.

The author of the report - a DWP cohort, of course - has decreed that the "Temperature Link" be based on the average COUNTRY temperature versus the average temperature of SW England (i.e. Cornwall & Devon). This decision being made using the argument that "it would not be feasible to administer winter fuel payments on a regional basis" (Treasury spokeswoman). As such, and using their spurious data methods, the DWP have decreed that expats living in France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Malta, Cyprus and Gibraltar will all have their WFA withdrawn from 2015-16.

So for any expat living in Northern France, above the Latitude of anywhere in Cornwall or Devon, who experiences EXACTLY the same weather phenomenon as their pensioner counterparts in Kent and Sussex, will lose their entitlement to WFA. Not a bad bit of discrimination, eh?

The more eagle-eyed of you may have noticed that Italy (a country much further south than some others named above) is not on the list. This is, according to the DWP analysis, because Italy's average annual temperature is LOWER than that of the SW of England. Believe it if you will. More cynical commentators are of the opinion that so many MPs have holiday homes in the Tuscany region that they really don't want to take the risk of pissing off their expat neighbours by removing their WFA!

Personally, I think that the issue has been summed up very nicely in the August 2013 editorial of the English-language newspaper, The Connexion, which I have taken the liberty of reproducing here:

“A British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and strong arm of England will be protect him from injustice and wrong,” declared Lord Palmerstone in 1850. This boast was backed up with the promise of gunboats, if required. If Palmerstone was prepared to send a gunboat in support of a British subject, what might he have sent to protect a British citizen (an important distinction in the days of Empire)?

Today, times have changed and British citizens, residing abroad, can feel more confident that any vessel sent by the UK government would have its guns trained on them for their temerity in asking that their contractual rights be respected. Not merely has the current UK government declared its resentment at its obligation to obey its anti-discrimination commitments as an EU member, it has announced its intention of creating a new form of discrimination - even though that too is likely to be declared equally illegal.

It is, of course, the now-you-have-it-now-you-don't issue of Winter Fuel Payments for expatriate pensioners in supposedly 'hot' EU countries that is at issue here. The legalistic quibbling over the definition of 'hot' (France hot; Italy, though extending further south, not) shows the traditional notion of British adherence to the rule of law in a particularly poor light. One of the myths of anti-EU propaganda is that Britain enforces all EU regulations, however reluctantly, while other members, notably France, ignore them. These weaselling contortions undertaken by the government puts the lie to that notion.

The issue has further heated the concerns of those already trying to overturn the unjustifiable 15-year [voting] rule and to secure some form of parliamentary representation for expatriates, since it reveals the lack of protection afforded to those affected by an uncaring government.

Among the voting rights in question is whether expatriates will be allowed to vote in the planned in-or-out EU referendum. Since the EU is now shown to be the last source of protection for the expatriate community, it is to be hoped that they will, and will vote to stay in, in their own interests - just as they should support all campaigns to and petitions aimed at retaining or restoring their rights as British citizens.

Finally, it emerged in a report by the Commons Energy and Climate committee yesterday that more MPs are calling for WFA to be means-tested. I agree - as any savings made by not automatically giving £200-£300 to high tax payers and millionaires should far outweigh the purported savings from removal of the WFA from the expat OAP who is only in receipt of a basic State Pension.

Ah, but that's not a Tory vote winner, is it?