The Scottish government’s winter fuel payment hypocrisy

The Scottish government has today confirmed that it will follow Westminster’s decision to end the universal payment of winter fuel payments to pensioners. Instead, a Holyrood-run alternative will ensure that those elderly Scots most in need are still supported through means-testing. Social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville insists she is unhappy about the decision, stating today that she had ‘no alternative but to replicate the decision’ after Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced cuts in England.

Somerville claims that the Chancellor’s decision to end universal entitlement for winter fuel payments means a cut of almost 90 per cent of the funding for the Scottish benefit. This sounds bleak, doesn’t it? But the social justice secretary has inadvertently drawn attention to the benefit Scotland gains from membership of the Union. Without the Barnett formula, SNP ministers would be redesigning this benefit without any money at all to fund it. As it is, the new means-tested benefit will be underpinned by ‘Westminster’ money – and if the Nats wanted to retain the payment as it once was, they do have the option of redirecting funding from elsewhere.