Re the Winter Fuel Allowance
According to the Press a POSSIBLE loophole has been found to either delay or force a further debate and a re think with regard to the forthcoming legislation to withdraw the Winter Fuel Allowance from Britons living abroad. However to force this issue it is necessary for a large number of Expats to complain by sending an email to the Works and Pensions Committee, the email address and a draft of a suitable email is shown below. If you feel that we should be entitled to the WFA then it is up to us to act now or lose it. The Closing date for this complaint email to be received by the Committee is only 10 days away, must be sent before the 24th January.
The British government is tabling legislation before parliament to introduce a benchmark temperature test. The British government’s new test will see pensioners living in Cyprus, France, Greece, Malta, Portugal and Spain lose the right to claim their winter fuel allowance payments. The new legislation is expected to come into force in time for winter 2015-16.
It had been ruled that expats living in countries where the average annual temperature is higher than the UK’s warmest region – the South West, at 5.6 degrees – will lose their allowance as of September 2015.
However a way around this law may now have been unearthed.
Expats are now being urged to force a rarely used parliamentary technique, EDMs – Early Day Motions – against statutory instruments are known as a ‘prayer’. The email which is circulating is urging that a ‘prayer’ is laid before parliament before January 24- 40 days after the Statutory Instrument was laid In order to activate the prayer, the Work and Pensions Committee must receive a large number of complaints within 40 days of the statutory change being implemented – i.e. beforeJanuary 24.
To help activate the prayer, copy the following email add your name and send it to this email address workpencom@parliament.uk
Dear Madam.
Please convey the following message immediately to the Committee.
To members of the Select Committee for Work & Pensions, it is urged that a ‘prayer’ an EDM as follows is laid before parliament before the 24th January (40 days after the SI was laid).
Early Day Motion (prayer)
Winter Fuel Payment to British Citizens in EU countries.
The Statutory Instrument 2014 No. 3270 (laid before PARLIAMENT on the 15th December 2014 restricting payment to pensioners residing in countries incorrectly called by the DWP ‘hot’ of the EU should be annulled. After the General Election, the matter may then be appropriately reconsidered by the new Parliament.
1. It discriminates against certain groups of British Citizen pensioners residing in certain States of the EU, some of whom are already in financial difficulties.
2. This SI almost certainly contravenes the UK treaty agreement with the EU on social security co-ordination.
Yours sincerely,
Please feel free to forward this notice on to your non U3A member friends and any other association that you belong to. In order to have a chance of overturning the Statutory Instrument, the clerk must receive a large number of submissions, then action may be taken to stop the implementation. Therefore this notification needs to be extended to the widest possible audience. Let’s give Mr Iain D-S a wake-up call that it does actually get really cold over here too and to watch out as it looks very likely we will be getting back our right to UK Parliamentary Voting in UK elections too, more on that in the next issue of The Link.
This important information was spotted in the Olive Press by several members and sent to The Link but as the next Link is not due out until after the deadline has passed you are receiving this as a special urgent notification as this could affect many British Ex Pats.
