MORE than 60,000 people have now signed a petition calling on the Chancellor to “protect older people” in the upcoming Budget.
It comes after Labour MPs voted to scrap the universal Winter Fuel Payment for millions of pensioners despite warnings it could lead to the death of elderly people.
A petition – which can be found here - set up by the director of Silver Voices Dennis Reed – an organisation for senior citizens across the UK – hit out at the “cruel decision” to scrap the Winter Fuel Payment.
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Following the decision, the Scottish Government said it had been left with “no choice” but to replicate the decision in Scotland.
In addition to a call for restoring the fuel payment, the petition also calls for a guarantee that other benefits will not be means tested.
Reed commented: “The Winter Fuel Payment has already been scrapped for 10 million pensioners and the Government has not ruled out means-testing the other universal benefits, the bus pass and free prescriptions in England.”
It comes as Reeves (above) prepares to deliver her speech to Labour Party conference on Monday.
We told how she has been urged to “put down the axe” and invest in the economy to deliver growth.
The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said: “Rachel Reeves is repeating the Tories’ mistakes by imposing damaging austerity cuts, which will starve the economy of investment and make things worse for families and public services.
“Fourteen long years of Tory cuts proved beyond doubt that austerity simply doesn’t work.
“Instead of ‘fixing the foundations,’ it has weakened them – reducing economic growth, squeezing wages, harming public services and pushing families into poverty.
“It’s no wonder the Labour Party are plummeting in the polls when they have broken their promises to voters and imposing billions of pounds of cuts, which economists are warning will hit growth.”
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