GB News viewer and pensioner Sue Ashcombe-Hurt has told Patrick Christys the impending Winter Fuel Allowance cut has resulted in her looking at avenues back into work.
In a candid admission on the People’s Channel, she admitted to looking for bar work in a desperate bid to make ends meet as she anticipates a crushing financial blow.
Keir Starmer’s party are axing winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners in a move to plug a public finance “black hole”.
But pensioners across the country are bracing themselves for a chastening winter with many unable to afford surging energy bills.
Sue Ashcombe-Hurt is seriously concerned about the winter fuel allowance cut
PA / GB NEWS
“I’ve got a pension from my bank and after 30 years, I get paid less every month than what the state pays on basic pension, I scrape just about £15,000-a-year”, she said.
“I’m not going to qualify for pension credit. I haven’t got any heating. My boiler is broke and I have got to try and find the money for a new one.
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Sue Ashcombe-Hurt joined Patrick Christys on GB News
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“I will just have to do what I did last year. Have my tea and then go to bed at 6pm and stay there until 9am the next morning.
“That’s how I dealt with it last year. I paid the national insurance for 40 years and I only get £169-a-week now.
“I think it’s totally unfair. People think we’re all wealthy and we should go out and work again if we’re short on money, that’s not possible when you have a gammy knee.
“I looked at doing bar work, but I can’t stand that long.”
Only people on pension credit or other specific benefits will be eligible to receive the discount, while about 10 million others are set to be stripped of the allowance.
The Prime Minister and Chancellor Rachel Reeves have blamed the previous Conservative government for the country’s financial woes.
Tory leadership hopeful James Cleverly said it was an “unbelievably foolish choice” while Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokeswoman Wendy Chamberlain said means-testing the payment worth up to £300 was a “historic mistake”.
Writing in the Daily Express, shadow home secretary Cleverly said: “Stripping millions of pensioners of their winter fuel payment, without a democratic mandate, is an unbelievably foolish choice.”
“The changes coming into force mean that a shocking 71 per cent of pensioners with a disability will lose payments; an appalling figure.
“By their own admission, the Labour government have not done a full impact assessment and we are now seeing figures that show that hundreds of thousands of people will miss out on support they are entitled to.”
