Winter fuel allowance withdrawal will make it cold in Spain for expats

I LEFT school at 15 years old and worked all my life until I retired, much the same as thousands of others of my generation, paying in to the system my National Insurance and income tax.

I lived in a village outside Huntingdon for half my life and had a good life. When I retired I decided to move to Spain, a country that I have loved since my first visit over 40 years ago. Away from the tourist traps the people are warm and friendly, proud of their village, region, and country. The country itself is the most mountainous and probably, in my opinion, the most beautiful in Europe. The French may disagree.

But now the minions of Whitehall have decided that anyone living outside the UK will not get the winter fuel allowance. How dare they. I had worked hard all my life paying into the British system, now to be told that the winter fuel payment that I relied on will not be paid. Have they any idea how cold it gets in the winter with the snow and ice in the Malaga high sierra, roads impassable for weeks?

I have never asked for anything that I am not entitled to. I have paid in more than I needed to in National Insurance. Your readers might like to check whether they have paid in full their contributions and are entitled to a full pension well before their actual retirement age.

David Cameron may swan of to Ibiza for a nice little break, think it’s nice and warm here and the say let’s stop paying the winter fuel to the expats. This goes to prove to man is an idiot, as I have always suspected. When I pay into a system for 50 years I foolishly expected to get some of the benefits that I had paid in for. If the so-called Government was a private company I am sure they would be sued by thousands of people. Please do not let my little rant put off any readers from leaving the UK – it is the best thing I ever did. The Government wants you to stay and spend your pension in the UK, the pension that they will tax.

ROY HARDING

Orihuela Costa

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