Warm Home Discount 'lottery'

Money Box

BBC

Business

4.2 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2020

⏱️ 34 minutes

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Summary

How do you make sure that people get advice before they cash in their pension funds early? The latest figures show that more than £2 billion was released early by nearly 350,000 people in the three months to September. Only about one in 30 of the people who take money out get guidance or advice about their decision. The Government’s answer is what it calls a ‘stronger nudge’ and on Monday it is expected to set out its plans to MPs as a new Pension Bill comes to its finale in the House of Commons. Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, Stephen Timms MP, thinks a nudge is not enough.

The Warm Home Discount gives customers on low incomes or in particular family circumstances £140 off one winter energy bill but Money Box has heard that some people who should be eligible to receive the discount are being refused because the scheme is running out of money and suppliers are tightening up the conditions. We speak to the boss of Utilita.

How to talk to children about money and 19,000 investors want to know why they have not been able to get their hands on their missing millions for well over a year.

Presenter: Paul Lewis Reporter: Dan Whitworth Researcher: Darin Graham Producer: Alex Lewis Editor: Richard Vadon

Transcript

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0:00.0	In Northern Ireland, from the late 70s to the early 90s, the IRA killed over 40 alleged informers.
0:08.0	But the man who often found, tortured and sometimes killed these people on behalf of the IRA
0:12.0	was himself an informer, a secret British army agent with the codename Stakeknife.
0:18.0	Who gets to play God? And why me? Why my family? When lies are still being told to this day,
0:24.0	who do you believe? I wouldn't even know where to start and I'm with the IRA.
0:28.5	Steakknife. Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:33.5	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, welcome to this Moneybox podcast.
0:40.1	Some low-income households with disabled people or young children in them
0:43.7	are being refused £140 discount off their electricity bill.
0:48.6	That's because the government's warm home discount scheme is running out of cash.
0:53.2	And what age should you start talking to children
0:55.6	about money? And 19,000 investors want to know why they haven't been able to get their hands on
1:01.9	their own money, £280 million of it, in some cases for well over a year. But first, how do you
1:09.5	make sure that people get advice before they cash in their
1:12.6	pension funds early? The government's answer is what it calls a stronger nudge, and its new
1:18.6	pension schemes bill, which is back in the House of Commons on Monday, will pave the way for that
1:23.6	to be introduced. The latest figures show that more than £2 billion was released early by
1:29.1	nearly 350,000 people in just three months over the summer. But only about one in 30 of the
1:36.1	people who take money out get guidance or advice about that decision. The government hopes its
1:42.0	stronger nudge plans would improve that. But even its own
1:45.9	figures show it would still leave the vast majority with no guidance or advice at all. Rose is 62,
1:52.9	still at work. She took some money out recently to pay for home repairs. I've taken out two
	...

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