Whatever you do, don’t call free television licences for the over-75s a perk. The same goes for the winter fuel payment, the £10 Christmas bonus, free bus passes and prescriptions, the extra cash for those aged over 80 and even the exemption from paying national insurance.
They are not handouts, not freebies, not a bung. “It makes me cross. These aren’t perks, they’re essentials,” said Neil Duncan-Jordan of the National Pensioners Convention, a campaign group.
“Many pensioner households would face real hardship without them because they are on such tight incomes. They’re vital.”
Whatever you choose to call them, the scrapping of free TV licences for the over-75s has reignited the intergenerational spat about fairness — the accusation being that pensioners are pandered to by
