LETTER: What about the elderly?

In the recent Autumn Budget what did the chancellor say about the elderly? Nothing.
What has the budget done for the elderly? Nothing.
What is this government doing for the elderly? Nothing.
The UK’s largest campaign group for pensioners says the Autumn Budget dismally fails our oldest and most vulnerable who face a bitter winter of rising prices.
The National Pensioners’ Convention condemns Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Budget speech (October 27, 2021) for not outlining measures to help retired people who rely on state pension to pay for higher heating and food bills.
Mr Sunak also made no mention of his earlier decision to suspend the Triple Lock, ditching the element of annual wage rises which would have seen state pensions rise by 8 per cent.
Indeed, next April’s state pension rise of 3.1 per cent will in no way make up for rising costs or the loss of its real term value over the previous decades.
Jan Shortt, general secretary of the National Pensioners Convention said: “This Budget shamefully does absolutely nothing for our oldest and most vulnerable who will struggle to cope with a bleak winter of prices rising faster than their meagre incomes.”
The Chancellor was so busy giving tax cuts to the banks that he managed to avoid mentioning his undermining of the Pensions Triple Lock.
Social care is on its knees, but money announced for Local Government – spread over the term of parliament – is nothing like the losses over the years and will not provide the help that is desperately needed right now.
The money raised by the increase in National Insurance – a tax hitting those on the lowest incomes – is clearly not all going to social care and will still not be enough to fix the crisis in the NHS.
Whilst we applaud the increase in the National Living Wage it is still below a decent income.
We want to see working people’s earnings rise but this will widen the gap between earnings and pensions even further. Without triple lock, more pensioners will fall into poverty.
Rewarding work is commendable, but where does that leave the older generation who have already worked and contributed all their lives? Nowhere, thank you Mr Sunak.
“The Chancellor keeps referring to Covid-19 for many of his decisions, yet he wilfully neglects those who suffered most during the pandemic, older people, tens of thousands of whom paid with their lives.
“It begs the question, what have the older generation done so wrong that this government consistently ignores and sidelines them.”
Of the 12.5 million people in the UK aged 65 and above should now realise that this Tory government does not care about us.

Rodney Sadd
Crowland
Union delegate for the South Holland & The Deepings CLP