U-turn cannot change fact Labour removed winter fuel payments – Swinney
The First Minister was speaking after the Prime Minister announced plans to make more pensioners eligible for the allowance.
No U-turn can change the fact the UK Government removed the winter fuel payment from pensioners, John Swinney has said.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced on Wednesday his Government will reconsider the criteria for the payments after it cut availability within weeks of taking office last year.
Speaking to the PA news agency during a visit to Glasgow Airport, First Minister Mr Swinney said regardless of the extension of the payment, it was still removed from most pensioners last winter, while his Government committed to offering a scaled back version of the payment in the upcoming winter.
The First Minister, however, refused to commit to passing on all increases in funding from the UK to the Scottish equivalent.
“I think people were dumbfounded that the first actions of the new Labour Government was to take away winter fuel payments from pensioners,” he said.
“Now the SNP Government has intervened and we’ve restored those payments to pensioners in Scotland and that was the right thing for us to do.
“But it was the wrong thing for the Labour Government to do to take away those payments.
“We don’t know what the Prime Minister is proposing to do, it’s one line at Prime Minister’s Questions, so no amount of humming and hawing from the Prime Minister will detract from the fact that Labour took away the winter fuel payments and the SNP has restored them in Scotland.”
Last year’s decision to remove the universal element from the winter fuel payment forced the Scottish Government to delay the creation of its own alternative due to worries about funding.
A means-tested alternative, which will provide some level of cash to all pensioners in Scotland, is due to be in place for this winter.
Asked if he would guarantee any additional funding from the Prime Minister’s announcement on Wednesday would be used to bolster payments to Scottish pensioners, the First Minister said: “Let’s see what comes out of this process from the Prime Minister.
“We’ve always got to look at what is the net effect of changes that are made by the UK Government.”
Also speaking at the airport on Wednesday, Scottish Secretary Ian Murray praised the decision of the Prime Minister.
“It’s the right thing to do,” he said.
“There will be nobody watching this or listening to this that didn’t appreciate the really dire situation that we took on in July last year, the fact it was even worse than we had anticipated.
“We’ve had to stabilise the economy.”
He admitted some decisions taken by his Government were “unpalatable”, adding: “Of course they were going to be unpopular, but we had no choice to do what was in the national interest to stabilise the economy.”
