Gale's View, June 2013, written after Chancellor George Osborne's Spending Review:
"Chancellor George finds himself at the Despatch Box announcing some eleven billion pounds` worth of public spending cuts. Pick your own headlines. “War on Welfare” fits the bill. There will, excluding the State Pension, be a cap on benefits and claimants will have to learn to speak English. A three billion pound 'joint budget', designed to improve healthcare and residential provision for the elderly, will be shared between the Health Department and Local Councils – which sounds remarkably like robbing Health Service Peter to prop up impoverished Local Government Paul. Council tax frozen for another three years, of course. Another eighteen billion of money saved from elsewhere to be ploughed into road and rail infrastructure which sounds good but, with the bill for High Speed Two rising like an Olympic stadium (currently £42 billion but next week who knows?), may not go very far.
And although the incoming Governor of the Bank of
England, Mark “Mountie” Carney, is predicting interest rate rises, the
really good news is that the 'double-dip recession' did not happen and
growth is back on the agenda.
All of this looks likely, though, to leave a
hundred thousand or so ex-pat UK citizens without a winter fuel
allowance that is worth up to £300 a couple. Quite how this is going to
be made to work is beyond my grasp of climate control.
The theory is that 'regions' with a higher average winter temperature
than the warmest UK regions will forfeit winter fuel payments. This is
based, of course, upon the thesis that ex-pat UK citizens are all rich,
idle, spend their days lying in the winter
sun and drinking G&T and do not need the modest sum hitherto
available to help to pay winter fuel bills. The facts, of course, are
rather different. As I know from my own overseas mailbag many retired UK
citizens, having worked and paid UK taxes throughout
their lives and in some cases still paying tax in Britain, are now
elderly, infirm, living in genteel poverty and are feeling the cold. (My
wife and I spent Whitsun, up to June 1st, in mid-France and
had a wood burning stove burning day and night
throughout the entire break!) I can see this policy being laid wide
open to challenge in the Courts. Is Bournemouth, for example, colder
than Finisterre? And, if so, during what period of time? I used to be a
staunch supporter of our overseas aid policy,
believing, I hope with compassion, that as still one of the strongest
economies in the world we ought to be able to help the poorest people
upon earth. I now feel that if money is tight then our own ex-pat
retirees, having paid their dues, are more deserving
of financial support than countries that can build rockets, engage in
space programmes and develop nuclear capabilities. And, while we`re on
the subject of assistance to ex-pats it`s surely time that our overseas
pensioners were given a fair deal on pension
uprating in those countries where we do not have a reciprocal
agreement."
*It should be noted that Sir Roger Gale's article was written prior to the Government's announcement of how their "temperature test link" would work - by taking an entire European country's average annual temperature (plus any overseas territories associated with that country - in particular those that lie close to the equator!) and comparing it to the average annual temperature of the South-West of England. As such, the Government's definition of "hot" in relation to France has been calculated using that country's overseas territories in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, where only 30 UK expat pensioners reside. As mainland France's average annual temperature falls below that of the SW England by more than several degrees this ensures that the Treasury does not have to pay those pensioners residing in France. This duplicity and deliberate manipulation can be seen when compared to the much warmer climes of Italy, where expats will continue to receive WFP!
