We are told that the country is so poor that we have to keep the two-child benefit cap and take the winter fuel allowance away from pensioners who are not on certain benefits (Winter fuel: 780,000 UK pensioners entitled to payment will lose it, 14 September).
Those just over the cutoff point will lose out although they are desperately hard up. This imposes the burden of our debt on the frailest, keeps child and pensioner poverty high, and has a knock-on effect in reducing our capacity to grow the economy.
The UK has gold reserves of more than 310 tonnes. These have not been touched for 20 years, but have risen in value by more than 25% in the last year, which equals more than £4bn. We could cash in that profit and still have the same value in our gold reserves. And it is enough to pay for scrapping the two-child cap and restoring winter fuel payments to the neediest pensioners.
The fact that the reserves have not been used for 20 years shows just how useless they are. We do not have any need for gold reserves. At the moment, their only possible use is as a rainy‑day fund, and this is, according to the government, a very, very rainy day. Selling gold could not diminish anyone’s confidence in our finances: we have already done that by explaining so loudly that we are desperate. Someone needs to clearly explain why it is better to keep this gold than to allow the poorest people to thrive. That will not be easy.
Alan Ereira
Author of Gold: How It Shaped History
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