Swinney pressed over ‘unnecessary deaths’ after winter fuel payment restricted

The Scottish Government was considering removing the winter fuel payment from some pensioners as far back as May, the Conservatives claimed as leader Douglas Ross asked John Swinney how many elderly Scots will die as a result of the move.

The First Minister came under fire after the Scottish Government said cuts imposed by Westminster had forced it to follow the example of the Labour UK Government and restrict payments to only those pensioners in receipt of certain benefits.

SNP ministers at Holyrood insist that is the only course of action available to them as Chancellor Rachel Reeves had cut £160 million from the Scottish Government when she announced the payment will no longer be universal south of the border.

But challenging Mr Swinney on the issue at First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood on Thursday, Mr Ross said: “Politics is about choices and John Swinney’s Government has chosen to pass on Labour cuts which could see 900,000 Scottish pensioners losing out.”

The Tory twice challenged the First Minister over how many “unnecessary deaths” there could be in Scotland as a result.

When the First Minister failed to answer, Mr Ross added: “Isn’t it telling that John Swinney has now twice been asked how many people in Scotland could die as a result of his policy and he refuses to answer.”

The Tory went on to state that a Scottish Government paper published in May, “long before” Labour came to power, had said ministers would “continue to review the eligibility and scope” of the payment.

“The SNP were considering cutting that payment back in May,” Mr Ross said.

“It is in black and white in their own document.”

He insisted that with an annual budget of more than £50 billion, the Scottish Government could have “mitigated against those cuts”.

Mr Swinney however said the decision to remove the benefit from some pensioners “was not of our making or planning and it certainly is not of our choice”.

He added: “We fully expected the devolution of the winter fuel payment issue to the Scottish Government and were planning to pay that support to pensioners in Scotland on a universal basis. That was our plan, that is what we were working on.

“With 90 minutes’ notice we were abruptly told our budget would be cut by £160 million because of the decision by the United Kingdom Government.”

The First Minister went on to accuse Mr Ross, who will be replaced by a new Scottish Tory leader on September 27, of “plumbing the depths in the questions he puts”, telling MSPs the Tory’s interpretation of the document is “vindication of that comment”.

In heated exchanges, which saw the SNP leader tell Scottish Conservative chairman Craig Hoy to “stop behaving badly”, Mr Swinney explained: “If we suffer a cut in our budget of £160 million, courtesy of the Labour Government, we have got to respond to that and we have got to act accordingly.”

He also hit back at Mr Ross, saying he would “take no lessons” from the Conservative as he “desperately clutches for straws in his last weeks in office”.

Adding that the Scottish Government is already mitigating “odious” decisions from the Tories’ time in power in Westminster, Mr Swinney insisted: “I need no lessons from Douglas Ross about mitigating decisions of the United Kingdom Government, because this Government is mitigating a series of decisions taken by Douglas Ross and his colleagues on an ongoing basis about the bedroom tax and other measures where we picked up the pieces.”