Time to test more means-tests
IN SOME ways you have to admire the repeated ‘courage’ of Deputy Mark Helyar in attracting the opprobrium of much of the commenting public for expressing the continued belief that things ought to change around the old age pension.
People are up in arms about the idea that the qualifying age for the States old age pension should rise beyond 70, the age the States has already decided it will be from 2049. They appear to be marginally less upset at the idea that access to the pension should be restricted for high-earners.
And while the choice of the sacred cow of the OAP is, as Sir Humphrey Appleby used to say in Yes, Minister, ‘brave’, one point that Deputy Helyar says he’s trying to get across in this debate is a fair one, which one suspects won’t get most islanders too upset.
He told last week’s Scrutiny Committee he sought to ‘engender a conversation about benefits and whether everybody should receive them’ and to make a case for ‘targeting benefits’.
Had the deputy chosen, say, the £12 States subsidy for visiting the doctor to be a means-tested benefit, few would complain, obviously depending on the ceiling drawn. The removal of family allowance, admittedly at a very high ceiling, has caused no upset. If you have £150,000 in annual household income, the loss of £15 per child per week probably goes unnoticed. And the benefits accruing from the savings realised are worth having – cheaper doctors’ appointments for kids a case in point.
Sell it to them properly, and on the ‘right’ benefits, and most islanders won’t object to means-testing. It’s a surprise that the States hasn’t, so far, tested this with more enthusiasm.