Winter Fuel Payment – more Westminster austerity

On 29-Jul-2024 the Labour government in Westminster announced the removal of winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners [1]. This austerity measure was not part of the party’s manifesto for election. As a result the money paid by Westminster to Scotland as the Scottish Government’s budget is to be reduced by £160m [2].

However responsibility for this “universal fuel payments” benefit was at the time in the process of being passed from Westminster to the Scottish Government. As the Scottish Government no longer had the budget to fund this, it could either make £160m of budget cuts elsewhere – or follow Westminster in also ending universal fuel payment. Ultimately it was forced to do this.

The Scottish Government was only given minutes notice of Westminster’s decision before it was publicly announced, despite Labour’s pre-election promise that “a UK Labour government will have a more collaborative
approach to the Scottish Government” [3].

The UK media – including the BBC – announced the Scottish Government’s decision without context – implying that it was purely a Scottish Government decision, and ignoring the fact that Westminster had forced this decision on them. Announced in this way the claim is only partially true, lacking full context.

In some cases the UK media headlined this as purely an “SNP” decision – when in fact it was a decision of the SNP-led Scottish Government.