MARTIN Lewis has stressed a warning over the "practical issue" of taking Winter Fuel Payments from 40 per cent income taxpayers only.

An X (formerly Twitter) user reached out to the Money Saving Expert via social media yesterday after Rachel Reeves addressed Parliament.

Mr Lewis then addressed Chancellor Rachel Reeves directly on X: "@RachelReevesMP in parliament today said: 'energy bills are cheaper this year than last'. True - even after the 10% Oct price cap rise.

"The saving equates to £100 over the 6 winter months for a typical home. But.. 1) Pensioner homes got an up to £300 cost of living payment the last two years that won't be made this. That alone easily wipes out the gain from lower energy rates.

"2) Up to 10m pensioner homes won't get the up to £300 winter fuel payment they got last year. Only those on typically less than £11,400/yr incomes will (& many of those will miss out due to chronic under-claiming of Pension Credit).

"This will leave many just above the threshold struggling to pay for heating this winter. Means testing is fine, but the test being used is too narrow. It needs to be broadened eg to Pension Credit recipients and pensioners in council tax bands A-D (not perfect but a workable, easy, quick equivalent to household incomes, that has precedence)."

The Twitter user, Elaine, then asked: "How about only taking the #WinterFuelPayment from 40% Income Taxpayers? Also, #IncomeTaxThreshold needs to be increased, not frozen for more years!"

According to BirminghamLive, Mr Lewis told her: "The practical issue with that is it is a household payment but tax is individual".

Elaine said: "When hubby (7 years older than me) received #WinterFuelPayment he got the £200 We couldn't claim #PensionCredit until we were BOTH #StatePensionAge When I reached #StatePensionAge, the @DWPgovuk said my #StatePension added to hubby's was "over #PensionCreditThreshold Contd.."

She said: "Continuation... The £200 #WinterFuelPayment was then divided between the two of us, £100 each So they can "divide" #WinterFuelPayment So why can't they identify 40% (Higher Rate) Taxpayers? I agree the "very rich" could do without it but after losing 6 years SP, I can't."

Another said: "That's a non-issue, they stop child benefit when one person in a household is above the 40% threshold, it would be easy to do the same with WFP."

Another said: "They do manage to make this happen for Child Benefit though".

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Someone else commented: "They’re on the wrong side for this one. Should be a taper. People under a certain age need to accept they need to save for a pension.

"Instead of comparing to Germany, they should make everyone save the combined 18.6% saved in Germany. I started when I was 22 in 1994."

"Whilst I hate it, would an alternative to be do it like the High Income Child Benefit Charge & claim it back if any pensioner's income is over a certain amount, say £30k or something? Like I say, I hate the HICBC system & need for self-assessment, but is it a better alternative?" another asked.