Meeting of the Parliament 08 October 2024
I welcome the opportunity to open a debate in Parliament during challenge poverty week. As Parliament will know, on 29 July, the United Kingdom Government announced its decision to restrict entitlement to the winter fuel payment, from this winter, to those in receipt of pension credit and other means-tested benefits. That meant that an important provision of financial support that was available to pensioners in the United Kingdom would no longer be in place. Instead, eligibility would be much more limited, to those eligible for pension credit and other relevant benefits.
That decision was taken with no notice or discussion with the Scottish Government. The decision came as a surprise to the Scottish Government, despite officials from both Governments working closely together on the social security programme that has been focused on delivering an effective transition to provide that benefit through devolved social security powers that this Parliament now holds.
As a result of that decision, Scotland’s share of this year’s block grant adjustment funding is expected to reduce by roughly £150 million. That is more than 80 per cent of the cost of our own devolved payment, the pension age winter heating payment, and it means that we no longer have the funding to offer the payment as a universal benefit, as we had intended to provide it.
In addition, the timing of the UK Government’s announcement and the lack of prior consultation with Scottish ministers means that alternative approaches to universal payment, and the means-testing approach that is advocated by the United Kingdom Government, cannot be implemented in the time that is left available to us.
After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to replicate the UK Government’s approach in Scotland, should that be necessary. My Government will, however, continue to press the United Kingdom Government to reverse that damaging decision, and we invite the Scottish Parliament to support that view in the debate today.
At the Labour Party conference, the Chancellor of the Exchequer told us that, under Labour,
“There would be no return to austerity.”
However, Scottish Government analysis indicates that roughly 900,000 pensioners will no longer be entitled to support with heating costs this winter. That feels to me a lot like a return to austerity.
With the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets announcing an increase in the energy price cap from this month, low-income households will be under even greater pressure this winter. That announcement from Ofgem comes in the context of an election promise by the Labour Party to cut fuel bills by £300, only for bills to increase at the first available opportunity by, on average, £149.