Christmas Bonus raised in Parliament

Lib Dem MP Anna Sabine raised the £10 “Christmas bonus” welfare payment in Parliament yesterday in written questions to the Department of Work and Pensions.

“To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the annual pensioner Christmas bonus in line with inflation.”

Sadly the minister, Labour's Torsten Bell MP, batted it away saying “The Department has no current plans to make such an assessment.”

The £10 is paid to people on a range of benefits including many disability benefits like Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Disability Living Allowance.

Lib Dem Disability Association has been advocating for some time that this be uprated.

A £10 Christmas bonus in 1972 money would be over £110 today - or to look at it another way, it is as if when introduced it was not a tenner but 86p.