Thread: British Expats Abroad receiving Fuel Payment

Winter fuel payments to British expatriates in Europe’s hottest countries have almost doubled in five years.
Pensioners in sun spots including Spain, Cyprus, Portugal, Greece and Gibraltar receive £13.4million a year to help with the cost of heating, compared with £6.9million in 2006.
The payments are vital to the elderly in Britain, where energy bills have reached an all-time high and the cold weather contributes to 26,000 deaths a year.
Pensioners who have emigrated to warmer climes for their retirement are still receiving their winter fuel payments. It means that more than £13m a year is being paid abroad
Their counterparts in Spain enjoy mild winters – yet they have still received an astonishing £29.2million over the past five years. This was described as ‘farcical’ yesterday by experts who question whether those living in a hot foreign country deserve help with their heating bills.
The tax-free winter fuel payment, worth up to £300 a year, goes out to all British pensioners whether they live in Cornwall or the Costas, Manchester or Malta.


The winter fuel payment, worth £300 a year is paid to all pensioners no matter where they live
Figures uncovered by the Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott show that from 2006 to 2011, 270,585 winter fuel payments totalling £52.9million have been made to pensioners in Gibraltar, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Malta and Cyprus. These are the eight hottest countries in the European Economic Area – the EU plus Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein.
Lord Oakeshott added: ‘It is farcical to be spraying out winter fuel payment cheques all around the Mediterranean.
Robert Oxley, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘This is an incredible amount of money to be exporting in benefits to the Costa del Sol. It was meant for pensioners struggling with the freezing temperatures back home, not expats enjoying life in the sun.’
A spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions said: ‘Winter Fuel Payments are paid to UK pensioners abroad in order to comply with European law. They are only paid to pensioners who first qualified for the support while living in the UK.’

The TaxPayers’ Alliance usually do a good job of exposing wasteful spending of tax payers money but i think they're off target on this one. Anyone that has lived in spain will tell you that a lot of Mediterranean areas get quite cold in the winter, a lot even get snow most years. The injustice of winter fuel payments is that its not means tested, the ex civil servant with his heavilly subsidised pension living comfortably in Tonbridge will receive the same as the ex docker in his pokey flat in Bermondsey