BY the weekend it was confirmed that the UK Government had decided to punish pensioners across the UK by removing the Winter Fuel Payment – without carrying out the proper assessment to determine the impact it would have.
Labour’s own statistics from 2017 – back when they were getting ready to oppose Tory moves to do similar – said 4000 people could die if the payment was removed. That’s before we saw massive inflation, a surge in costs across the board. And the energy price cap was several hundreds of pounds lower back then.
That’s why Alba Party leader Alex Salmond (below) has called on the Scottish Government to stand up for pensioners in Scotland by mounting a legal challenge at the Court of Session against the UK Government’s decision to introduce means testing for the fuel payment. This followed legal advice received by leading Scots lawyer and Solicitor Advocate Mike Dailly.
The decision announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves, which was followed by Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville saying the Scottish Government would have to follow suit in relation to the new devolved benefit, the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment, which is set to replace Winter Fuel Payments in Scotland, will end universal entitlement for 900,000 Scots pensioners.
All politics should be about doing the right thing for the right reason, but imagine if the UK Government had been foolish enough to axe winter payments to almost a million pensioners in Scotland back in 2014.
As we mark 10 years since the independence referendum I can’t help but be angry at the Unionist scare stories that voting Yes would result in people losing your pension, while a decade on a new UK Labour Government has chosen to define its early days in office by raiding the pockets of pensioners and driving far too many into hardship.
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Does anyone, regardless of their political allegiance, really think Alex Salmond wouldn’t have moved mountains to ensure Scottish pensioners weren’t robbed in such a manner? Firstly because keeping pensioners out of poverty and out of the cold at winter is the right thing to do, and secondly that sort of political decision would’ve won the independence referendum.
It’s simply poor politics for the Scottish Government to decimate nearly every budget line instead of standing firm and ensuring that winter fuel payments for Scottish pensioners are not removed against their will.
The decision to means-test the Winter Fuel Payment and the successor benefit in Scotland, the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment is a cruel blow to pensioners in Scotland. This will not only see hundreds of thousands of pensioners who are already living in fuel poverty deprived of a vital financial lifeline of up to £300 a year. Alarmingly, it creates the very real prospect of more Scots pensioners dying this winter.
The speed of the announcement, a mere three weeks after coming into office, as well as the fact, that the Chancellor said that this was an emergency measure necessitated by the fiscal position which she inherited from the previous government, would both lead you to conclude that the proper process of evaluation had not taken place.
And thanks to a Freedom of Information release, and the meek words of Sir Keir Starmer, we now know that the UK Government has not adequately considered the impact of their war on pensioners.
About 85% of disabled people who currently receive the winter fuel payment will stop receiving the support under means testing.
What a disgraceful statistic for an energy-rich nation.
Alba are calling on the Scottish Government to use its offices to seek a judicial review at the Court of Session against the UK Government’s decision to effectively end the Winter Fuel Payment for 900,000 Scots pensioners.
The advice of one of Scotland’s leading solicitor advocates, Mr Dailly, confirms that as well as there being an overwhelming moral case against this decision, given the potential threat to life, which it represents through an increase in Excess Winter Deaths this year, there is a legal case which must now be tested.
It is a matter of real concern that this decision has been announced with no prior warning. There was a reasonable expectation on the part of pensioners themselves, as well as the Scottish Government that this benefit would be paid this coming winter. In addition, it is unthinkable that any thorough Equality Impact Assessment would not show firstly, that older people are at greater risk of health complications and death as a result of this decision and secondly that older disabled people and older people with underlying health conditions will see their health made worse, as a consequence of this benefit being withdrawn.
Instead of pursuing a series of failed and discredited legal misadventures in the Scottish courts, the Scottish Government should instead use the clear opportunity presented to at least try to stop this measure in its tracks. If they do so they’ll have succeeded in inflicting a defeat against the new Labour Government and a victory for the pensioners of Scotland.
Alba know that the campaign to ensure economic justice for pensioners is bigger than any one party, that is why we will seek to work cross-party with politicians in both Holyrood and Westminster to place this decision at the very top of the political agenda and to amplify the public outcry and political pressure which is building against this decision.
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Scotland is an energy-rich nation that sends billions to the UK Treasury from oil and gas revenues and we are set to generate more than fives times more electricity from renewables than we need. We are to become the only top-25 oil-producing country in the world without an oil refinery and the only country in the world set to see its citizens become poorer while having vast amounts of natural resources.
Ten years on from the 2014 independence referendum the case for Scottish independence is now stronger than it has ever been and the need to restore independence for our people has never been more urgent to ensure economic and social justice for our nation.
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