Pensioners Fuel Payment cut – Fight back – we won’t freeze!  

National Pensioners Convention. Photo: Paul Mattsson

Jimmy Haddow Lothians  

16 days after the Starmer Labour Government announced the means testing of the Winter Fuel Payment (WFP) the Scottish Government confirmed it would no longer be providing winter fuel payments to people of pension age unless they are on Pension Credit or other State Benefits.  This means a loss of £200 for a single person or £300 for a couple, per year.

The WFP was created by the New Labour Government in 1997 in Gordon Brown’s first pre-budget statement.  The WFP was originally a UK benefit and will eventually be devolved but the SNP government pre-empted this by the announcing it is putting back the Holyrood alternative until the winter of 2025 at least. 

The Scottish Government estimate that only about 130,000 people of pension age are in receipt of Pension Credit or other means tested State Benefits will now receive the WFP. Previously 900,000 received payments.  

I am on the cusp of 69 with no private pension and just the State Pension. That is above the Pension Credit threshold which means I will not receive the WFP this year.  Ironically, the day after the Scottish government announcement I received a letter from my energy provider – Scottish Power – telling me that Ofgem are set to announce the new price cap level on Friday 23rd August and the projected yearly rise for my bill will be nearly £200. 

Age Scotland have an on-line petition for people to sign for the Scottish Government and the UK  government to reverse their position in cutting the WFP; and they have lobbied the Labour Scottish Secretary, Ian Murray, and the Labour Government to reverse their decision – but it is all platitudes from Mr Murray; and I also add my East Lothian MP, Douglas Alexander who is a Junior Minister in the Labour Government, who said that several of his “constituents have contacted me about this issue, and I do understand the concerns that they and others have expressed. However, given the state of the public finances, we must prioritise making fairer choices than the previous government.”  

 How can this Labour minister really understand the concerns of people on the low-income of pensioners when he is on a government salary of £113,741 per year plus expenses? 

The Starmer Labour Government and the SNP Scottish Government throw the ‘£22 billion black hole’ like dust in our eyes but the reality is it is less than 2% of the UK’s government’s budget.      

The economic black hole is a consequence of the extreme crisis of Scottish and British capitalism which the Scottish and UK governments are making the working class pay for something that is not their making. 

The SNP government is now blaming Labour in Westminster like it did the Tories. Westminster SNP leader Stephen Flynn wrote to Labour MP’s asking them to vote against the cut, while he has said nothing about the SNP government and MSP’s making huge cuts in Scotland. Rather than cut, the Scottish government could fight back by utilising its income tax powers and setting a fighting no cuts budget, utilising all financial mechanisms, mitigating this and other cuts and increasing payments. This could be linked to a mass campaign demanding back the billions stolen by Westminster in austerity.   

 The trade union movement should stand up for the working class who are being made to pay for the capitalist crisis. Unite leader Sharon Graham was right to demand a reversal of the cut at the TUC.   The retired members of the trade unions in Scotland should be putting forward resolutions in their unions for the building of a mass campaign jointly with organisations like the Pensioners Convention.  This could be a kickstart to organising in working class communities against fuel poverty, bill rises and prepayment meters.  

They could organise a STUC led demonstration at the Scottish Parliament; for a reversal of the WFP cut and for an increase in the State Pension linked to inflation.  At the same time the trade unions should organise a conference to create and organise a new workers’ party based on the trade unions, anti-austerity groups, pensioner groups, the youth and others that will have a socialist programme based on the nationalisation of the banks and major companies, including the energy companies, under democratic workers control and management.