Scottish ministers ‘looking at options’ for winter payment for pensioners

The Scottish Government could be poised to change its alternative to the winter fuel payment for pensioners, as Finance Secretary Shona Robison said they were “working through the options” in the wake of Westminster’s U-turn.

With SNP ministers now risking their scheme being less generous than the equivalent UK Government benefit for some pensioners, Ms Robison said: “We are looking at all the options.”

She said the Scottish Government was doing this work “at pace”.

However she said that ministers at Holyrood had had no notice of the policy change, which was announced by the UK Government on Monday.

Having scrapped the winter fuel payment for all but the worst-off pensioners in England and Wales last year, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has now said some nine million senior citizens south of the border will receive the payment this winter.

The payment, worth up to £300, will be restored to the vast majority of pensioners who previously received it, with those with an income of less than £35,000 a year qualifying for the UK Government’s payment.

In Scotland, ministers had already announced plans to ensure all pensioner households receive a payment.

The pension age winter heating payment will see all pensioner households get at least £100, with poorer pensioners getting either £200 or £300 depending on their age.

Scottish Labour has however challenged Holyrood ministers to ensure that “no struggling Scottish pensioners will be left out of pocket under their plans”.

Pressed on the Scottish Government’s response, Ms Robison told journalists at Holyrood: “We’re still working through the options and we will do that at pace, clearly we need to.”

“We’re working through the options. As you will appreciate, we had no notice of this.

“We had no notices of the change in the first place, we had no notice of the U-turn, so we need to work through what this means and we are doing that, at pace, and we will come to our conclusions.”

Ms Robison added: “We are looking at the options and then we will make a decision in good order and we will communicate that decision, and then we will have to work through the financial implications of that.”

But she said the scheme the Scottish Government had developed was proposed “to give people something that had been taken away from them”, as she urged people to “remember the cause of all of this”.