Pensioners cheer annual rise

ALL pensioners with modest savings or incomes below £135 a week and couples with less than £200 were promised more money, while the basic State pension will increase every year by at least £100.

Referring to the means-tested pension credit announcements for 5.4m pensioners in 2003, an Age Concern spokeswoman said: 'We welcome the Government's good intentions but it will add yet another layer of complexity to an already complicated system. We are worried that the Government has not got a sufficiently far-reaching strategy for tackling pensioners' poverty.'

Yvonne Bennion, policy specialist at the Industrial Society, said: 'Pensions credits will mean a huge extension of means testing. For every pound of second pension, savings or earnings above the minimum level, 40 pence of the pensions credit will be deducted. The Chancellor has to solve the problem that if pensioners are receiving housing benefit or council tax benefit, they will lose a further 51 pence.'

Referring to the announcement that pensioners will receive an annual £200 cold weather payment for the rest of Parliament, the Age Concern spokesman said: 'We support this...there would be less need for such payments if there was a more adequate basic State pension.'

Help The Aged said pensioners would welcome the extension of the £200 Winter Fuel Payment and what they described as a 'modest' guarantee on increasing the State pension.

A spokesman added: 'However, the Chancellor's 'big idea', the Pension Credit, whilst apparently generous, is complex and arbitrary, and draws half of our older populationinto means testing. Help the Aged remains unconvinced that this is the right way forward.'