You can't means test it in the true terms of 'means testing'.

The State Pension has a number of elements to it. The basic element is based on NI contributions only. For anyone reaching State Pension age after 06/04/10 this would mean needing 30 qualifying years to get the full basic element (new rules). Anyone reaching State Pension age prior to this date needed 46 years (male) & 39 years (female) - (old rules). The basic pension with a full record is currently £107.45 p/w, pro-rated down as a fraction (i.e. 25 qualifying years would get 25/30 of a full basic element) for new rules, and a percentage for old rules.

Other elements - known as additional state pension based on earnings in excess of the minimum amount needed to gain a qualifying year have conditions attached related to having a private/workplace pension. The rules related to this is available on numerous websites, and are far too involved to go into any great detail here. The basic jist though is if you've got your own arrangement, you're not likely to get much of the additional state pension, if any. There are four different versions in operation though - one that ran from 1961-1975, another from 1978-1997, another from 1997-2002, and lastly from 2002 onwards. What you do get though is a reduced rate of NI you pay (1.4% less) on your earnings if you are part of an employers pension scheme.

So in effect those with large private pension pots are already penalised by the state. Also, the state pension is a taxable benefit - along with any private pensions, so if anyone is getting £40k+ per year in combined pensions then they should be paying tax at the appropriate rate with it.

Those with no other source of income are currently supported by Pension Credit - where if a person is in reciept of this they are exempt from council tax and usually live rent free. There is assistence with mortgage interest payments, and a disregard on the first £10k of savings. People with other sources of income can also claim this, but those sources are taken into account against the payable amount.

They have plenty of previous in taking the worse-case scenario and then applying a broad brush "solution" to "the problem", working on the principle that many will not bother appealing or get so fed up with the process, they simply accept their fate and wither & die.

They are, without doubt, an evil-minded nasty set of bastads. Always have been and always will be. As Nye Bevan said:
"No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin"

You see, you've highlighted a problem with "assessments" right there.

You've already set a bar, a line in the sand, by inferring that because a person can type something on an internet forum they are perfectly capable of working in an office doing a typing sort of job, data input or similar.

This is how the "assessment" works, its a tool with a pre-prepared agenda to describe a task which can be completed and then with a wave of a wand transpose that task into a "job" and in doing so prove that the person is not totally invalided at all and therefore fit for work.

Problem is that in the real world those sort of jobs just don't exist anywhere.

A job where you can data input at your own speed with regular pauses due to pain or fatigue or inability to concentrate for long periods of time - you can still type don't forget - a job where your managers don't mind if you have to take irregular absences for medical visits some of which might not be pre-planned, a job on a regular bus route that is not far from a bus stop where a bus with a drop-floor ramp is available.

We aren't asking for much are we, we haven't even started yet...

And we're assuming that none of the 2 million + other people in the job queue don't want that sort of job as well given that they can offer a better performance promise than that.

Just out of interest, one of our directors recently issued a decree that too much time was being wasted on medical appointments and sick days at our place of work and that we should all aim to cut back on this, what they forgot was that the company absence planner is on the intranet so its really easy for anyone to look at it, most staff have no sick days this year (me included), only three have more than four days and one of those is a director, of all sick days taken those three represent 80% and two of those are women who I know for a fact took some days off due to their childrens sickness.

If a small business like the one I work for are targeting working women with school age children and warning others for having just one or two days sick per year, then just where are we heading to ?

Who introduced the 10p tax band in the first place and who introduced the Tax Credits that largely filled the gap when the band was abolished?

Clue : Not the Tories.

ah, so it's ok for labour to screw the poorest in society because they doled out the cash in the first place?

the 10p tax was introduced in 1999, the tax credit system we now know (it's a offspring of the old family credit brought in by the tories) came about in 2003ish, the 10p tax band was got rid of 5 years after that, plus those who were hit hardest by the removal of the 10p tax band didn't even qualify for tax credits, which makes your assertion that they filled the gap, what?

clue: rhymes with pollocks.

You should have just called Dita a fool who doesn't know his ar*e from his elbow, as he/she clearly doesn't. Unless someone has experienced the effects of chronic long term sickness, not only on the sufferer but also their family and finances, it is very hard to understand just how bad things can become. If this is then compounded by low life politicians trying to suck up to middle england by pandering to their prejudices, all you can do is raise two fingers and take aim with your mobility scooter.