Lee Anderson: The Government has just proved its outright hostility to pensioners

OPINION

It turns out the government’s indifference, if not outright hostility, to pensioners knows no bounds. First, they took away Winter Fuel payments for millions of people and now it seems that they are prepared to see countless numbers of older people plunge into poverty as a result of their political choice.

The campaign group Silver Voices have been raising the alarm for some time now that because of the frozen tax personal allowances the top of the new state pension may breach the current personal allowance as early as next year. This would mean we would end up in an absurd scenario where the basic state pension, which has already been paid for through national insurance and tax, would end up being taxed again. Despite writing to the government and collecting over 115,000 signatures on their petition, Silver Voices have not even had the courtesy of an acknowledgement or a single reply to any of their correspondence.

The campaign group take this as a sign that the Labour government just can’t be bothered to consider the implications of the basic state pension being taxed, even though it impacts a fifth of the UK population.

However, I think it’s worse than that.

This isn’t just about a campaign group not receiving a reply to some correspondence, it’s much deeper than that.

This is an example of the hostile environment that the Labour government is creating for pensioners, making it as difficult as possible for them to enjoy a good quality of life towards the end of their days.

Those who worked hard their entire lives, paid into the system and played by the rules throughout their entire working lives have already suffered the indignity of their Winter Fuel Allowance being cut.

Being taxed on their basis state pension adds further insult to that serious injury.

What’s even worse is that whilst the government is seemingly happy to see this happen to pensioners, they are also happy to pay for free hotel accommodation for illegal immigrants at cost of £54,000 per person per year.

This is not fair at all. Britain is broken.

Unlike Labour, Reform UK MPs voted to keep the Winter Fuel Allowance and will always stand up for pensioners.

We cannot and simply will not let Labour get away with taking even more money away from the most vulnerable.

Next week voters across the country have the opportunity to send a clear message to Labour that they will not put up with this.