Campaigners are accusing Labour of being "in denial" about the extent of pensioner poverty, warning that hundreds of thousands of households are facing "hidden misery" as the Government's approach to the state pension triple lock raises fears ahead of Wednesday's Budget.
Nicholas Philippopoulos, 85, from Banbury, Oxfordshire, was forced to retire in 2015 after being diagnosed with Parkinson's and Kyphosis. His family relies on benefits totalling £2,674.27 a month, but household expenditure stands at £3,080.
He said: "We are £405 short every month with no provision for heating whatsoever. We eat thanks to the food larder and supermarket yellow sticker items. The heating in our house works off oil, but at present we have none; therefore, no central heating. The house doesn't have any gas supply, so everything else works on electricity, and our car is a 2007 gas guzzler."
Financial Cliff Edge
Mr Philippopoulos lives in accommodation secured by West Northamptonshire Council but is teetering on a financial cliff edge. He explained: "They arranged a 10-year tenancy starting at £1,550 a month, increasing by £100 a month every March, so by the end of the tenancy I'll be paying £2,550 a month."
"The maximum housing benefit is £333.70 a week plus a discretionary housing allowance of £47.07 a week. This year I am paying £1,750 a month rent on a benefit of £1,650 a month. I have had to subsidise the rent by £1,200 this year from my pension and disability benefit. From March 2027, I'll have to find £200 a month."
The father of two added: "The same applies to my state pension. I am only entitled to £195.91 a week. If successive Governments start fiddling and changing the triple lock or don't do anything about the impending fiscal drag issues, and we pay tax on pensions, we old and disabled folk have nowhere to go, with the exception of Dignitas in Switzerland. Maybe that's our Government's goal. They certainly don't behave as if they care."
Silver Voices Speaks Out
Dennis Reed, director of pensioners' action group Silver Voices, said: "The testimony from our member Nicholas is representative of the hidden misery faced by hundreds of thousands of pensioner households."
"We expect governments to identify and tackle poverty, but for pensioners the reverse is the case today. Labour is in denial about pensioner poverty and wants us to crawl back under our stones. In fact, as Nicholas points out, the situation is being deliberately worsened by the plans to scrap the triple lock and the refusal to lift the freeze on tax personal allowances."
"And for pensioners like Nicholas, every rent rise increases pressures on the household budget. It is not surprising that so many older people feel that once we have outlived our economic usefulness, we might as well be sent to the knackers yard."
MP's Concerns Over Triple Lock
Labour MP Neil Duncan-Jordan, who previously rebelled against the Government on cuts to winter fuel support and disability benefits, has tabled a Parliamentary Motion opposing plans to axe the state pension triple lock. The state pension currently increases each April by the highest of inflation, 2.5% or average earnings, but Prime Minister Andy Burnham plans to scrap it from 2030.
Mr Duncan-Jordan said: "The UK still has 1.9m older people living in poverty. Means-testing doesn't work because for decades hundreds of thousands of pensioners eligible for pension credit have never received it and millions more have incomes just above the poverty level. Far from being job done – the triple lock is still a work in progress to address decades of struggle in retirement."
He added: "The public often don't realise that we have two state pensions – the old and the new. Anyone who retired after April 2016 is on the new pension, which goes up by the triple lock every year. But the majority of pensioners are not on this pension. That's because they continue to receive an old basic state pension and a second state pension. What people don't realise is that the second state pension doesn't go up with the triple lock and, as a result, the gap between the old and the new state pension is widening."
The Treasury said: "As has always been the case, the Chancellor will set out his decisions at the Budget, rather than routinely commenting on rumour, speculation or proposals."
