General Chat

Got ours Tuesday last week do people abroad still get it ? Ours are paid into separate accounts Rumours it's going to be stopped Barbara .

we had ours this week. I think whether it is stopped or not depends who wins the election. I am sure I saw that Boris has said he will keep it. (But then who knows if that can be believed.

It’s only payable to pensioners in this country

I got my letter last week

Winter Fuel Payment will be made to UK citizens resident in other EU states where the average winter temp is lower than the UK. About 20 qualify.

Is that 20 residents or 20 EU states?

I found mine in my account.

I think that UKGov has at most 20 UK citizens in mind probably all in Hungary but no, I meant UK citizens resident in some EU states ( Spain, Malta, Cyprus, Italy, Portugal France ) def. do not qualify because of the torrid mid winter warmth. There may be more.

In my experience though it can be quite parky in Murcia, Lyons, Paphos, Lombardy, Porto, Heraklion during the winter so I assume expats living there are made of the right stuff. Roll out the barrel.

btw the WHA does not require the recipient to be in receipt of a UK state pension, only to be of a certain age.

Wrong Rollo there are UK citizens living on Cyprus who live on the central mountain range where it gets to minus temps and can have a great deal of snow. None get payments, I have heard them talking about it,

Not wrong.

The Tories ( under Cameron I think ) decided to junk the WHA altogether for people not resident in the UK. The redtops, DM etc were quite virulent in their campaign against WHA for those they deemed to be rich old Brits living it up in Paphos etc funded by the mighty spending power of the WHA and UK pensions.

There was quite a complicated legal squabble the upshot of which is that it all depends on what UKGov reckons is AVERAGE winter temperature in the UK v the average in other EU states. The fact that there are plenty of v cold areas within Greece etc etc is bye the bye.

If the UK brexits from 1 Jan 2021 budget for (a) no more WHA (b) no further UK pension increases (c) no EHICS card (*) (d) health care insurance. It is already the case that UK citizens not habitually resident in the UK are not entitled to free NHS health care.

(*) EHICS is on the list of things that might be negotiated but with strings.

Got my letter last week

My sister lives in Canada but has a U.K. pension from her contributions when she worked here and before they moved to Canada in 1977

It’s a fixed pension and doesn’t get any increases that we get or any other perk like winter fuel allowance .
The winters then get cold too but she doesn’t qualify