The Chancellor can either start rebuilding the trust of older people in Labour, in her Budget this week, or declare war on pensioners. The choice is stark, either lift the lower tax threshold to stop the state pension being taxed or extend it until 2030 and break a Manifesto promise to both pensioners and low paid workers.
If the lower tax threshold is extended beyond the end of this Parliament, the consequences for the quality of life of senior citizens are enormous. £14 billion extra pounds will be stolen from pensioner pockets when millions are already struggling to cope.
As our member Karen has emphasised, life is already miserable and frightening for those just above the pension credit limit.
Karen limits the number of showers she can have and does not switch her central heating on. She cannot afford to go out, does not smoke or drink, and finds it impossible to understand why Labour is putting her in this situation. She cannot afford to pay more tax.
Silver Voices believes that if the Government goes ahead with this vicious tax trap, it will be part of an intentional plot to undermine the state pension and Triple Lock system by stealth.
The large majority of older people, up to 10 million, will have been brought into the tax system by 2030, meaning that every Triple Lock increase will immediately lose 20% of its value.
This agenda is being pushed hard in Government by anti-pensioner individuals in the Treasury like Torsten Bell MP whose political mission seems to be to make pensioners pay for the current economic mess.
We are also worried that there will be further pensioner-bashing moves in the Budget as the Government has encouraged so much speculation in recent weeks over means testing the state pension and the remaining universal pensioner benefits.
It has cynically used think tanks to prepare the ground for wider attacks on pensioners either in this Budget, or in the coming months.
But our key objective this week is to scupper moves to extend the lower tax threshold, which would penalise low paid workers as well as senior citizens.
Think again Rachel, there is no public support for this continual pensioner-bashing.
