Reader walk: Belgravia

As organisations become more cash-strapped, and older people are regarded as wealthy, fewer destinations now offer reduced prices for pensioners, as they reckon that older people will visit anyway.

At the 35 most popular museums, galleries and heritage sites that charge for entry, the Intergenerational Foundation found that 24 give discounts from age 60, and four from 65, and seven gave no senior discounts at all.

Banks and building societies used to pay better savings rates to older people, but today only two have specific accounts for oldies and the rates are no higher than those paid to anyone else.

The most contentious change is hitting the free TV licence for the over-75s, a perk worth £154.50 a year and introduced in 2000 by Gordon Brown. The whole household gets free television when the oldest member reaches that age.

At present, the cost is paid by the Department for Work and Pensions but, in June next year, the Government is handing responsibility to the BBC. The corporation has to decide whether it can afford to maintain the concession. It is already having to make cuts of £800 million by 2021-22 and it says keeping the perk would cost it £745 million a year, equivalent to the combined annual budgets of BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, the BBC News Channel, CBBC and Cbeebies – altogether a fifth of its current budget.

Age Concern reckons losing the free TV licence could push 50,000 pensioners below the poverty line and it wants the Government to continue funding.

Whoever pays, we would be a despicable society if we allowed lonely elderly people to lose the lifeline of their television sets. It is not a question of money.