£300 Winter Fuel Payment eligibility could be 'widened' in one part of UK

The country, north of the border, will be able to decide which pensioners get the allowance from October next year under further devolution of benefits to Holyrood.

Scottish Labour believes access to the winter fuel allowance could be widened in Scotland. The country, north of the border, will be able to decide which pensioners get the allowance from October next year under further devolution of benefits to Holyrood.

Although the Winter Fuel Payment is paid by the Scottish government in Scotland, the funding for it will fall by at least £140million because of the chancellor’s cut. As a result, the SNP Government copied the new Labour Party government and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) decision to restrict it to those on Pension Credit. About 770,000 pensioners are likely to be affected, according to Scottish government estimates.

Age UK director Caroline Abrahams said: “An estimated two million older people, in all, will face an even steeper mountain to climb in paying their energy bills and staying warm and well when the weather chills. With pensioners also losing the cost-of-living payments they’ve received over the last two years we simply cannot see how some of them will cope.”

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She adds that lifting of Ofgem’s price cap for energy bills makes it “even more obvious” that making the Winter Fuel Payment. Charity Age Scotland warned Scottish pensioners would be adversely affected by cuts to winter fuel payments due to colder temperatures north of the Border and living in homes that are harder to heat.

The warning came as the Unite trade union branded the decision to delay an expected vote at Labour party conference on the fuel payment cut an “outrage”. Katherine Crawford, chief executive of Age Scotland, told The Scotsman: “Older people in Scotland are already increasingly affected by fuel poverty as they are more likely to live on a fixed income, in a rural community, or have an older, hard-to-heat home.

“With energy costs also projected to rise by 10 per cent just as we enter the coldest months of the year, the UK government’s rushed decision to means test the winter fuel payments feels particularly cruel.”