Work and Pensions Minister Mike O’Brien has told MPs that pensioners who retired to Spain & other sunny destinations are still entitled to receive winter fuel payments.
Over the last 5 years, £22 million of “Winter Heating Allowances” has been paid out to OAPs living overseas - much of it to people in popular sun traps like Spain, Malta and Cyprus.
It seems a nonsense to waste public money in this way but, then it dawned on me why the Government pay the money to expatriate pensioners……. the DWP have no way of validating if the pensioners are out of the country.
It’s back to the New Labour promise on tougher border controls “we will count them all in and count them all out”. The reality is that there are still no exit controls and no recording whatsoever of the movements of British passport holders into and out of the country. So British OAPs in Spain can enjoy their winters with a few glasses of sangria paid for by their government.
