At the time of writing, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to announce the Starmer Labour budget on Wednesday, October 30; as I’m a day ‘out’, my concerns below may – or may not – hit the mark.

Let us see what is rendered unto us, and particularly how older citizens fare.

Despite the promises of ‘no return to austerity’ before and since the election, we may prepare to once again tighten belts, gird loins, and screw our courage to the sticking place.

The reason advanced for a ‘challenging budget’ is that the retreating Tories, despite previous years of austerity, had not only failed to increase the size of the public purse, but had left it worse than empty. We have ‘a black hole’ in the economy.

‘A black hole’ may be more recognisable in Northern Ireland as a pre-peace process colloquial expression for particularly sectarian areas, but it properly describes something for which we have no explanation; something beyond the limits of the existing knowledge of experts in the field.

If Keir Starmer, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, and Head of the Crown Prosecution Service, and a barrister, really believed the ‘black hole’ theory, he ought to know enough to have initiated an independent forensic examination of the Government’s accounts by now.

If he had any common sense at all, he would at least know not to try and get a different result from applying the same overall Tory remedy, and just call it something else.

It would appear that the new Prime Minister and former barrister might be better described as a ‘Smart Alec’ than learned, and – worse still – as we country people would put it, that the Tory is not far down in him.

Pensioners are a key target for the Chancellor, Ms. Reeves, whose persona, like that of her leader, comes across as a throwback to the woodiness and economics of the Thatcher era.

I suspect cutting the Winter Heating Allowance is only the beginning

For transparency, I declare an interest here: I am a pensioner, and one not in receipt of pension credit.

While I am not financially wealthy, I will not suffer any great personal loss a result of the loss of the winter allowance.

My reason for being implacably opposed to removing the heating allowance is that common sense and lived experience tells me a significant number of other pensioners will.

There is a general awareness that people over 65 ‘get the pension’, and that something called the ‘triple lock’ benefitted them more than the average worker, last year, even though there are wealthy retirees whose private pensions reflect their very eye-watering working salaries.

Most retired working people depend largely – and many entirely – on the state pension, to which they and their employer contributed over 30 working years or more.

The full basic state pension is £169.50 a week, or £8,814 a year for a woman born before 1953.

The full state pension for people born after that is £221.20 a week, or £11,502 a year.

Pension Credit is an additional payment which tops up that weekly income to £218.15, if you’re single, and if you live with a partner, to a joint income to £332.95.

So if you only get the £169.50, live alone and have no other income (some income from other benefits is not counted), you would get the difference in Pension Credit, and if you lived as a couple with someone who, for example, got £221.20 with no other eligible income, you would get the pension credit to top up the benefit to £332.95.

Pension Credit is what is what is known as a ‘passport’ benefit.

It provides entry to other benefits, because the Government knows that you probably can’t meet those costs out of £218.15 per week.

If you get Pension Credit, you could also be eligible for Rates Relief; Housing Benefit (if you rent the property you live in), or help with mortgage interest if you own the property you live in and are still paying mortgage.

If you get Pension Credit, you will still automatically get Cold Weather payments.

Pension credit also opens the door to help with NHS costs that are no longer free, if you get the Guarantee Credit part of Pension Credit.

This includes things such as prescriptions, dental treatment, glasses and transport costs for hospital appointments. There is also the free TV licence if you’re aged 75 or over.

There are a lot of pensioners entitled to Pension Credit who don’t get it because you have to apply for it.

My advice to all pensioners is to call in at your local Community Advice Centre for free advice and support, which is confidential, professional and independent.

There are, however, many others who already feel the pinch of the cost-of-living crises even more than those on Pension Credit, because they do not have sufficient income to make up for the financial cost of the things they need, which would be free if they were even £5 a week poorer!

Consider, for a moment, a pensioner living alone, in rural Fermanagh or Tyrone, in a house older than themselves that they were born in, or still paying a mortgage for, and while not meeting the increasingly ‘high bar’ for Adult Disability Allowance/DLA/PIP – those regular benefits not counted as income – lives with reduced mobility and overall health, and who has a total weekly income of £221.20 per week.

This is a single £5 note each week above the top-up level for Pension Credit.

So, when the annual free eye-test confirms annually decreasing eyesight, where will the price of the glasses be found, or the dental care?

Where will the annual rates be saved from? What will meet the cost of repairs and replacements; an upgrade of old heating systems?

And what of transport – when a free bus pass is of little use, if there is no bus?

There is no rural living benefit, despite the recognition of the higher cost of rural living.

Bearing in mind that pension credit is intended only to keep you at basic survival level, and that the options for generating earned income is not readily available to pensioners, these are the key stress points where the relative poverty gap for pensioners not benefitting from Pension Credit seriously kicks in.