Winter fuel payment article in Daily Mail

General Discussion
21

This was on a facebook page. I have emailed just in case:

This was seen on a Spanish expat site - worth sending off ladies - I've done it.
We have been sent a possible loophole in the Statutory Instrument, the piece of legislation that the
British Government has used to take away the Winter Fuel Payment.
There is a parliamentary technique which is rarely used to halt the implementation of the Statutory
Instrument, otherwise known as a prayer. It has to be activated within 40 days of the tabling of the Statutory Instrument.
In order to have a chance of overturning the Statutory Instrument, the clerk must receive a large number of submissions, then action may be taken to stop the implementation.
You must send an email to the clerk – Work & Pensions Committee workpencom@parliament.uk
You may use the following text:
Dear Madam,
Please convey the following message immediately to the Committee.
To members of the Select Committee for Work & Pension.
It is urged that a ‘prayer’ an EDM as follows is laid before parliament before the 24th January (40 days after the SI was laid)
Early Day Motion (prayer) Winter Fuel Payment to British Citizens in EU countries.
The Statutory Instrument 2014 No. 3270 (laid before PARLIAMENT on the 15th December 2014 restricting payment to pensioners residing in countries incorrectly called by the DWP ‘hot’ of the EU should be annulled.
After the General Election, the matter may then be appropriately reconsidered by the new Parliament.
1. It discriminates against certain groups of British Citizen pensioners residing in certain States of the EU, some of whom are already in financial difficulties.
2. This SI almost certainly contravenes the UK treaty agreement with the EU on social security co-ordination.
Regards
Put your name here i.e. Joe Bloggs

Sorry I didn't realise it had already been posted and there isn't a delete button.

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What you can do about about the Winter Fuel Payment

If you are moved to protest by the discrimination over the removal from the end of 2015 of the Winter Fuel Payment ........
You could copy and paste the following [that between the ****] in a new mail, and send to the email address given here below. It indicates a parliamentary technique which is used rarely to halt the implementation of a Statutory Instrument. It has to be activated within 40 days of the tabling of the Statutory Instrument. If the clerk receives a large number - something might be done.
regards Brian.

To the clerk –W&P Committee workpencom@parliament.uk

**************************************************
Dear Madam. Please convey the following message immediately to the Committee.

To members of the Select Committee for Work & Pensions

It is urged that a ‘prayer’ an EDM as follows is laid before parliament before the 24th January (40 days after the SI was laid)

Early Day Motion (prayer)

Winter Fuel Payment to British Citizens in EU countries.

The Statutory Instrument 2014 No. 3270 (laid before PARLIAMENT on the 15th December 2014 restricting payment to pensioners residing in countries incorrectly called by the DWP ‘hot’ of the EU should be annulled. After the General Election, the matter may then be appropriately reconsidered by the new Parliament.


1. It discriminates against certain groups of British Citizen pensioners residing in certain States of the EU, some of whom are already in financial difficulties.
2. This SI almost certainly contravenes the UK treaty agreement with the EU on social security co-ordination.

*********************************************
23

Quite frankly all of the UK papers are little more than fire litter. The DM is one of the more overtly biased and I would always feel obliged to check the accuracy of any alleged facts published in it (let alone the editorial line superimposed on them). How readily the Brits exploit opportunities to score cheap political points! What I find more intriguing is why anyone living in France would want to read a British paper of any sorts. I'm still working in the UK (not on UK projects of course since there are none to speak of) but I find Le Monde the only paper worth spending any time on (with occasional forays into Die Zeit).

Re the fuel payments...Ian makes a good point. Current payments were funded by past PAYE & NI contributions. Just because a former 'subscriber' subsequently emigrates it does not follow that they should relinquish their entitlements. Would I expect to lose my private pension fund simply because I left the UK? Of course not. in fact I would be furious if I did. I would however expect to be subject to different tax rules, and to incur additional 'transaction' costs in having the money remitted to me, but that is all. Now if, as in the EU, there are reciprocal agreements and I were able to benefit from equivalent payments from my new domicile then fair enough, I would effectively forfeit any remaining entitlements elsewhere. Alas, this is all assuming an ideal world, co-operation between 'competing' states and a lack of penny-pinching vindictiveness on the part of mean-spirited but vociferous minorities!

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Like :-))

25

Cannot see the logic in Italy being lumped in with the colder countries. Maybe House of Lords retirees prefer it to Spain. Oh and there was me thinking the I in IDS stood for Ian when it patently stands for Idiot.

26

I can't believe you think this present coalition 'government' are right-wing! You must be going back a fair bit but, frankly, they are all a shower and things are heading for a huge shake-up, and not before time.

27

And look where the "right-wing rotters" have got the UK for many years now, and on-going... :p

28

I agree, someone must be buying the DM for it to still be going strong! As for me, I read it on-line, along with several other papers, and have never felt the need to apologise for doing so, and frankly find it pathetic when those who possibly like to catagorise themselves, or fly the flag, as being 'left-wing lovies' feel the need to do so....look where that got the UK for quite a few years and on-going.. :-(

29

Meanwhile, lifted from Private Eye:

Why Lord Rothermere is parking mad

lord rothermere.jpg
The Daily Mail proprietor Lord Rothermere has a very pricey parking space
DAILY MAIL proprietor Lord Rothermere, also known as Jonathan Harmsworth, appears to go to extraordinary lengths to keep his millions out of the taxman’s clutches. The Eye has discovered that he has even bought a parking space near his Kensington office through an offshore company.

Land Registry data shows that in February 2009 a company called Harmsworth Holdings Ltd bought a 125-year lease on space number 76 at the exclusive underground private car park under York House, just across Kensington High Street from the Mail’s Derry Street offices. The company is registered in St Lucia, 300 miles off the South American coast.

Why Rothermere would need this bizarre arrangement is not clear – he would not comment on the matter to the Eye – but buying assets through offshore companies controlled by family trusts carries big tax advantages for “non-domiciled” taxpayers like Milord Rothermere (see Eyes passim).

The company owning the parking space is considered an overseas asset and remains outside the scope of a “non-dom’s” future inheritance tax bill. And if the parking space was bought out of the ample income received by the Bermudian company and offshore trusts through which Rothermere controls Daily Mail and General Trust plc, there would be no “remittance” to the UK to generate an income tax bill.

The same St Lucian company also owns land and one further, unidentified property in the Kensington area. Yet another Rothermere company, Harmsworth Trust Co (PTC) Ltd, registered in the British Virgin Islands, owns 10 English properties, most of them near the Rothermeres’ neo-Palladian pile in 200-acre Ferne Park in Wiltshire.

(Most non-doms, incidentally, would lose the inheritance tax break once they lived 17 out of 20 years in the UK. But Rothermere can thank his father for choosing France for his tax exile and thus bequeathing it as his country of domicile, since a longstanding agreement between the UK and France happily overrides this rule.)

Rothermere isn’t alone in using an offshore company to own 12 square metres of tarmac and a precise 1.9 metres of airspace under York House. Fifteen further spaces – each said to be “large enough to accommodate a Rolls Royce” - have been bought in the same way: five through companies incorporated in the BVI, three in the Isle of Man, two in Liberia, one each in Jersey and Guernsey and a couple of unknown origin.

Rothermere’s purchase was for an unquantified amount, although other spaces bought around the same time went for £100,000, the top price being £149,500. Investors in what is described as “London’s first boutique car park” seem well-pleased. “What a delight,” says one. “Having suffered for many years with the aggravation of trying to find a parking space at night, let alone the frustrated nanny on the school run [sic]. This car park has solved all my problems.”

* * * * *

So, if we really want to take the DM seriously, we could best do it by ignoring the rag.
30

If the May election returns this government and a couple of the sitting state secretaries and ministers like IDS, then there is worse to follow. Watch the already mooted pension freeze being rationalised, endorsed and put into law. Meanwhile the City enjoys bonuses and food bank queues grow...

31

It is even very useful to light the fires we need to keep warm!

32

"Apologies for sullying this site with an article from the Daily Mail . It always amuses me that folk who obviously read the DM feel the need to apologise for this fact! Don't feel guilty about reading the DM people. It's not illegal, immoral or habit forming & how else would we find out this recent Winter Fuel information?

33
"It's absurd and offensive that taxpayers fund payments for people who have retired to the Mediterranean"
Iain Duncan Smith
It's absurd and offensive that Tory toffs think that "taxpayers" are funding these payments ; they were funded years ago by PAYE from those who now need them, shivering by their Godins in half-ruined cabins in the Corrèze :)