There would be some very great sense in tightening the qualifying criteria for winter fuel payments, as this administration is considering doing, if at the same time efforts were being made to keep fuel costs down.

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Oh. So they're not cost-cutting on the expense of keeping the inconvenient older generation alive then? Further cost-cutting, that is -on top of the savings made by the 'infections' that sweep through hospitals....

That is certainly a thought ... Soylent Green next?

A British friend of a friend lives in the Carribean and receives a winter fuel payment from UK government. Why ?
If Cleggerrons want to reduce costs then they would do well to be sure it goes where it is needed and not where it isn't.

Virginia (what a lovely name),

That British FoFof yours: what colour is the delightful de-richer?

EU murders grannie.

I doubt the winter fuel payment will be touched, however I am fully in favour of culling the child benefit bonanza, only 3 kids paid for, none at all for top rate taxpayers

Why pay for any? If people want to churn out kid after kid why should the taxpayer be forced to subsidise them, if they can't afford to keep them, don't have them. It's become a thriving industry especially for the immigrant/migrant who have lots of kids. If CB has to be paid it should be for the first only. I think paying CB for kids not even living in this country is a real piss take.

I also object to immigrants/migrants who have never paid a penny into the system receiving pensions.

I don't blame these people I blame the politicans who have encouraged robbing the taxpayer.

Don't conflate issues ... immigrants are one thing. As to the indigenous population, the survival of the nation depends on the population being replaced ... having kid is therefore in the national interest and if couples are prepared to cut back on their lifeestyles in order to raise children, why should there be no financial incentive? What people forget though is that there used to be child tax relief ... i.e., you paid less tax if you had kids. Put another way, you paid more tax if you didn't have kids. Now we have child benefit ... and this is seen as a cost?

Not very often I disagree with you Dr North, but here I do.

You say don't conflate the issues, but they are combined. How can they not be, all those with children receive CB no matter how many kids they have, taxpayers & never taxpayers.

Alright what I can agree with you for taxpayers, but a limited number kids being paid for, in the national interest (although the EU passes for national interest as far as our ruling elite are concerned) receiving CB but I can't see your point in separating non-taxpaying immigrants/migrants from the issue. Apart from immigrants/migrants I also include the feckless indigenous who have never worked or intend to work in not receiving CB for churning out kids like smarties.

Before they did away with the married couple allowance they still had CB, so it's not really in place of high taxes it's been paid for years.

I'm sorry if you find my approach to this as being wrong but when I see my other half work his arse off, and not for a high wage, to subsidise all and sundry who have never paid a penny in then I see red.

To be truthful if I was a young person starting out today I wouldn't have children for them to grow up under a foreign regime, the EU or be brainwashed by the education system. I actually feel very sorry for the youngsters of today.

Take your point - it is fraught ... but what I'm trying to get to is that NOT taking tax off people should not be treated as a cost.

So no benefits for children just tax relief??

It is a possibility ... child beneft going only to non-earners, menas tested.

I fully understand your point here. It's similar to one that is raising hell in the US these days. The government (US or UK) is behaving as if all money is THEIRS to seize and dole out as they see fit. It isn't... it's yours, and the best thing would be for the government to not take it away from you in the first place.

I don't know how the public dole system works in the UK, but here in the US, by the time the gubmint takes out their share of the tax $1 at each level of bureaucracy, there's $.23 left to dole out to the end recipients.

How is that efficient? Answer: It isn't. If a charity operated that way, they'd end up in prison.

Better that the $1 be left in the pocket of the citizen in the first place. It's YOUR money, not the government's to scrape a good 3/4 off the top before "generously" doling out the slim remainders.