Unfair means-testing

SIR – Baroness Bakewell says she was asked by Robert Plant why he received a winter fuel payment – and suggests the allowance should be means-tested.

Means-testing is all very well when considering the extremes of Plant and pauper, but it can become unfair at the margin, when the system can seem to reward the feckless and punish the prudent. Gordon Brown attempted to means-test the entire population, creating a ruinously costly support industry in the process. It is better to keep things simple and give strivers the occasional well-earned bonus too.

Anyone feeling guilty about receiving a payment could do worse than give it to the homeless, or give it to a homeless charity and get tax relief on it too.

Tunbridge Wells, Kent

SIR – Peter Froggatt (Letters, December 7) is wrong to suggest that the state pension is a “welfare benefit” that should be means-tested. The state pension is a right, paid for in my case (and in my peers’ cases) by 50 years of income tax and national insurance contributions. I shudder to think of how much indirect taxation we have also paid over that period.

There is nothing wrong with receiving a little back for the service many of us have given throughout our working lives. If we have been frugal and made financial provisions for our futures, we should not be seen as part of the wider problem of benefit costs.

Herne Bay, Kent