Of course, IDS included all the offshore tropical islands instead of just the Hexagon.
Nasty man.
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yes sad to sad I agree. Most items of food are double to those in UK.
Makes it very difficult .
It’s why many farmers in the UK can’t make a living now growing food. UK supermarkets are fixing prices for extended periods into the future and don’t take into account the large increases in farmers costs. This means that farmers just stop growing certain crops and there are shortages. These shortages are being made up with imported produce, a lot of some products coming from France. The UKs proportion of food grown to food consumed is at it’s lowest level since figures were calculated and it’s not surprising. In France, supermarket prices paid to producers are adjusted much more frequently meaning that farmers are supported rather than shafted.
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It always amuses me that so many here are critical of the UK government, the people that live in the UK and the country itself yet demand the same rights and benefits as if they were still living there. I’d also say that if people really need the WFA something is really wrong with their finances given that UK pensioners living here have just been awarded a 10% increase.
I await the abuse. 
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So pleased you’re amused Tim, but I wonder why you think that pensioners, wherever they live should not get the benefits that are due to a lifetime of contributions to the pot.
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I think you’ve very much got a point Tim17.
However a large number of posters on here fall into the category of having for a variety of reasons spent much of their life in the UK. Including very often an entire working life. Which in the UK, did include some quite large contributions by themselves and their employers, to secure state pension for them after their working life.
They are tied to receiving whatever the UK pension is, even if it does not turn out to meet their needs wherever they might have relocated to. People in France, for instance, of income similar to UK state pension or less, are entitled to a free or low cost mutuelle for healthcare. Someone whose income is based on non-French sources, such as a state pension from the UK, is not eligible to receive this benefit even though they face the same costs.
So they will receive UK state pension only, if their circumstances and life history meant they did not earn enough or at all, in France. They are still able to claim other UK benefits, but very few. They have to take whar they earned from the UK.
However to Brits in France only, and not in other European countries, the basis for the WFP was manipulated unjustly in order to deny the WFP earned which is given ro UK pensioners. Probably as France is the country that has by far the biggest group of people who earned their pension in the UK. So a tasty target.
Good or bad, the pension and WFP were earned and should be paid. The UK government shouldn’t be able to pick and choose. It was earned.
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Up to a point you are right, except it was a choice to live outside the UK , we are not fleeing persecution or other things , I think you have to accept that you don’t qualify for everything payed in or not.
Think they’re (wrongly) called "benefits " now.
My comments were of course in part said in jest David but do you not think it’s funny that people whinge about not receiving the WFA yet don’t vocally rejoice/gloat that the 10% ‘triple lock’ increase more than covers the inflation rate here which is much lower than the UK’s. Cake and eat it?
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If it’s a question of pension rights then why isn’t the pension sum increased to cover all this. Why then have an automatic yearly payment as a one off benefit of pension rights. And why again do you have people having this right, that earn more than those in work, comfortably off, and those struggling on a pension filling shelves at 3 in the morning not getting a bit more…
There are people on here who understand the civil service much more than me, but I have always understood the general issue with means testing anything is that it becomes prohibitively expensive. The same principle as was always the case with free TV licenses for the over 75s (until they changed it a couple of years back obviously). It would cost far more to administer the means testing of the scheme than it would save by not paying it to some, making it ultimately more cost effective to just pay it to everyone and have some on the fringes who don’t really need/ deserve it. I’ve no idea whether this is actually true, or whether it would be the same for the WFP, but that is my understanding why means testing is generally not liked for these schemes, unless of course the aim is to remove as many people, and in turn reduce the total paid out, as possible.
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I’ve been gloating (albeit it not on SF) and have also a further two UK index linked pensions. Trouble is much of the increases related to UK cost of living are being cancelled out by the crap exchange rate and French inflation. Nevertheless, certainly not complaining. after all, I’m still living in France and not the UK…
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My comments were of course in part said in jest David but do you not think it’s funny that people whinge about not receiving the WFA yet don’t vocally rejoice/gloat that the 10% ‘triple lock’ increase more than covers the inflation rate here which is much lower than the UK’s. Cake and eat it?
No I don’t think it’s funny at all. What has location got to do with it? You pay your dues, you reach the designated age, you are then supposed to get the things that were always promised only to find them snatched away by a useless piece of crap who spells his name to make himself appear aristocratic and lives in a giant house on the money his wife brought to the marriage.
That’s not whingeing it’s bloody anger, especially as the goalposts were moved after we came here to work in the brave new world of free movement of labour and in the spirit of a united and free Europe.
We live here frugally and I have no complaints about that, we like it here and do not want to move back, but if we did, we couldn’t. How the hell do you think selling a little bungalow here stacks up against the price of even smaller property in the UK? It doesn’t, so don’t tell me about triple lock and inflation and how lucky we are. And what stopped all this rot? A bloody life changing referendum that many of us weren’t allowed to have a vote in.
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nor me 
Bravo David 
What @tim17 also fails to explain is the disparity between application of this policy to France and not to the warmer parts of countries in the EU like Italy which he conveniently ignores.
But, once again, I won’t hold my breath.
I agree with you both. The appalling UK government renegs and withdraws support where it is desperately needed, and then blanket awards payouts elsewhere. Means testing should be a requisite, not only for winter fuel subsidy, IMO.
SIL and husband living in a huge house in the centre of Oxford. Having gaily acquired a WACdS to avoid paying for visas when visiting their maison secondaire, are joyfully pocketing 2x the UK WFA every year.
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Everything is means tested here when you apply for it which is as it should be. UK tax resident near me in the old commune obtained a CDS withdrawal version after applying yet he was adamant at not living here and paying french tax and came every few weeks for long stretches having only bought the house a couple of years previously, I was not happy after all the hoops we had to go through to get the new cards after being french tax residents for over 25 years and he could buck the system like that by telling ovious lies.
maybe the Fisc will eventually catch up him… one can live in hope.
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Instead of paying in cash ,winter fuel allowance make the payment only redeemable with an energy supplier.
Then it goes on what it was aimed at
I don’t need to explain anything Graham, the WFA is such an insignificant sum of money in the scale of things and the annual ‘triple lock’ pension uplifts have more than made up for the loss over the years.
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as ever Tim - avoiding the difficult questions but demanding others answer yours
This question was about why just UK overseas pensioners in France and not the rest of Europe - if you don’t know, just say so and we can move on but kindly stop hammering on about it and avoiding the issue.