Martin Lewis issues warning to almost one million people not claiming vital payment

Martin Lewis issues warning to almost one million people not claiming vital paymentGMB

Transcript

00:00OK, so there's up to 880,000 people who are eligible for pension credit who aren't claiming.

00:06Now, the government, since it launched the Winterfuel announcement, has done a pension

00:10week of awareness.

00:11I've done it.

00:12I've been out there talking about it, as I have done every year.

00:16And the increase in claiming of pension credit in the five weeks since Winterfuel was launched,

00:20it's gone from a typical 18,000 over that time to 38,000 people have claimed.

00:25So an extra 20,000 people claiming over five weeks.

00:28And many people who are elderly, who have issues such as onset dementia, that means

00:32they will never claim this payment.

00:36And that is a real problem.

00:38There are two problems over the Winterfuel payment going.

00:41One is, I think, the means testing in itself is too narrow.

00:44So let's just remember what that means for those 700,000, 800,000 pensioners who don't

00:50get pension credit.

00:51It means, by definition, they've less than around £11,400 a year income.

00:57Less than that.

00:58These are the poorest pensioners.

01:00It means the government thinks that they should get Winterfuel payment, and they're in such

01:05a dire state that they do get Winterfuel payment, but they still won't get it.

01:10What they're going to do this winter?

01:12How are we going to stop them having to choose between eating and eating?

01:15There's a secondary argument that we should increase the means testing threshold so that

01:19more people get it.

01:20And I'm supportive of that.

01:21I'm suggesting we give it to everybody in council tax band A to C, who's a pensioner

01:25as well.

01:26But what we're going to do about the people who don't claim pension credit, there is a

01:29deafening silence on.