Edinburgh Pensioners Missing Out on up to £50,000 each

11.42.00am GMT Tue 1st Jan 2008

In the face of the latest cold snap Edinburgh South Lib Dem campaigner Fred Mackintosh has highlighted recent research that shows that many local pensioners could be missing out on up to £50,000 in benefits. Fred Mackintosh said "This is yet more evidence that Labour's attempts to combat pensioner poverty are failing. It is hardly surprising that of pounds of pensioners' benefits remain unclaimed when the system is so complicated. As energy prices continue to rise it is essential that the Government takes effective action to tackle the root causes of fuel poverty."

The research was done by the London School of Economics for the British Gas Help the Aged Partnership's winter deaths campaign. While the Government sits on a pot of £4.5 billion in benefits unclaimed by pensioners, over one million pensioner households still live in fuel poverty - a major cause of preventable winter deaths. In 2002 the Scottish House Condition Survey showed that 286,000 households - 13 per cent of the total - lived in fuel poverty and that approximately 60 per cent of fuel poor households are pensioner households.

Earlier this year, Edinburgh South Liberal Democrats carried out a constituency-wide pension survey which received over 600 responses. The survey assessed the views of the governments handling of pensions over their decade in power and report that "Our wide-ranging survey showed us resoundingly that both retirees and those still in work feel let down and disappointed by the government's pension policies. The government's handling of the pensions system has hit so many people hard," said Fred Mackintosh.

The Liberal Democrats want to see a Citizens Pension that pensioners receive by right and where the value of the pension is increased in line with earnings.

Related Link:

Help the Aged Winter Deaths Campaign.