It’s time to be realistic about benefits. Wealthy pensioners need to be able to decline theirs

Universal pensioner benefits like the Winter Fuel Allowance (WFA) cost the Exchequer over £8 billion a year. This is not a massive sum compared to overall government expenditure but it is absurd that every pensioner gets WFA, even cash millionaires. We must face the fact that this is totally wrong. It is morally and economically wrong that lower-paid people are paying for the benefits of millionaires who are more than capable of paying their own fuel bills.

In an ideal world we would stop handing out WFA to people who didn’t need it. But that’s not easy or cost-effective. So we need to look carefully at the WFA and other pensioner benefits currently paid to the very wealthy, like the free bus pass and TV license, and come up with innovative ways to manage the payments.

Sometimes it takes innovative policies and political determination to change lifelong policies like universal benefits. That’s why I’m delighted to be opening the Conservative Renewal conference next month at which these kinds of policies will be discussed including BBC funding, UKIP and the nature of immigration.