£10 Christmas Bonus

I think the point being made was that the cost to the DWP is huge, in terms of their payment processing, letters, transaction feeds and other administration, especially given how tokenistic the payment feels to many people, and that that money might be better spent elsewhere.

A number of years back I received a letter from council tax stating I had underpaid by a penny, I remember at the time thinking how much more than the penny it would have cost them to send that letter. I received another letter a few days later, with pages of new calculations, stating they owed me 5p. I think there are similar considerations to be made here.

This topic comes up every year and there are lots of points to consider. Of course not everyone is going to agree and depending on personal circumstances £10 can mean a lot more to one person than to another. The issue isn’t ingratitude, it’s that the bonus hasn’t kept pace with inflation. A payment that loses value year after year stops being meaningful support.

People aren’t complaining because they expect luxuries. They’re pointing out that £10 in 2025 doesn’t buy what £10 bought in 1972. That’s a reasonable observation, not entitlement.

@SwiftFox, we will usually post a gentle reminder on discussions if comments start to feel personal or directed at individuals rather than the idea being discussed.

For example, saying you’re happy with the £10 Christmas Bonus and feel it’s fair is about the topic itself. But describing people who hold different views as “ungrateful” can start to feel personal, and that’s usually when the team would step in to try and keep things constructive and prevent escalation.

If you’d like to explore this further, it might be better to start a new discussion so this one can stay focused.

Bringing things back to the topic:

When I was looking into this, I found that in 2008 the payment was temporarily increased to £70 as a one-off, to provide extra support to certain groups and help stimulate the economy.

I'd be interested to hear what people feel the purpose of the bonus should be?

I think that's a very interesting and valid point @MW123.

As a couple of other people have already mentioned, I do sometimes wonder whether the reason it continues is because of the complaints they’d receive if they stopped it and how it would play out in the media, etc. for any government that did. Despite that, in its current form, I can’t help but question how much support it actually provides.