Expats demand fuel payment
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Expat pensioners lapping up the sunshine on the Costa del Sol have launched an audacious campaign to be paid the same fuel allowance as their contemporaries shivering through a typical UK winter.
Expat pensioners lapping up the sunshine on the Costa del Sol have launched an audacious campaign to be paid the same fuel allowance as their contemporaries shivering through a typical UK winter.
Frost is rarely seen on Spain's southern coast, but the sun-tanned pensioners in Malaga, Spain, are undeterred, putting pressure on ministers to pay up, through the pages of their local paper.
Their demand has been made possible by Gordon Brown's decision to introduce a new flat rate fuel allowance for pensioners of £100, irrespective of temperature.
Pensioner James Bromley, in an article "Home Thoughts From Abroad" for the Costa del Sol newspaper The Market Place, cried "discrimination" when he didn't get his £100 allowance. He branded it a "charade" and urged elderly people living in the south of Spain to demand what was theirs.
"An immoral act has been perpetrated on a large group of elderly and vulnerable people," he wrote. "British citizens who have served their country are now being deprived of their rightful dues."
His appeal won immediate support among his fellow elderly emigrants. One pensioner suggested appealing to the EU about the matter, another a protest to Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Social Social Security.
The allowance was brought in by Chancellor Gordon Brown in March last year with the promise that all pensioners would receive a flat payment of £100 in December - an attempt to iron out anomalies surrounding an earlier scheme which only became effective when temperatures fell below freezing.
The Malaga pensioners' protest fell on deaf ears when put to the Department for Social Security.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments