This weekend, Iain Duncan Smith sparked a furore when a Sunday Telegraph interview quoted him as saying he would ‘encourage everybody who reads the Telegraph and doesn’t need [their winter fuel allowance], to hand it back’. This morning, however, he appears to have offered a retraction, telling the Today programme that ‘I’m neither encouraging nor discouraging anybody to hand their money back’, adding that if pensioners are eligible, ‘it’s wholly their money to take if they wish.’ And his colleague Ken Clarke claimed there wasn’t even a mechanism for doing this.
So, if you normally spend your winter fuel payment on your family’s Christmas presents or on restocking your wine supplies, can you hand it back to the government? And how?
The DWP does have a helpline (0845 915 1515) which as Duncan-Smith points out has always been on its website, and which allows people to call and ask for their payment to be stopped, either as a one-off, or permanently.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in