Two days ago, the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice Shirley-Anne Somerville wrote again to the UK Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Liz Kendall:
Dear Liz,
I am writing to you to express further concerns, following the publication of the UK Government’s equality analysis on the impact of the introduction of a means-tested Winter Fuel Payments, which shows that across all assessed characteristics those affected by this change in policy will greatly outnumber those unaffected.
The Scottish Government continues to support vulnerable households from fuel poverty through a range of actions within our limited devolved powers. This year alone, we are spending £134 million on activities to mitigate UK Government policies through schemes such as Discretionary Housing Payments and the Scottish Welfare Fund, which provide vital support to households struggling to meet their housing and energy costs. However, we cannot continue to mitigate UK austerity policy decisions. What is really needed is reform of the UK energy markets to address the root causes of fuel poverty in Scotland, such as high fuel prices. In these circumstances I would urge you to now reverse the Winter Fuel Payment decision and reinstate the payment for all pensioners.
This decision was of course taken without consultation or discussion with the Scottish Government and it has had devastating consequences for our planned launch of Pension Age Winter Heating Payment, reducing the Block-Grant Adjustment for our devolved payment by over 80%. Having carefully considered the options, given the significant impact
of this decision and the wider cuts being imposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on our budgets, we have had no choice but to mirror this approach in Pension Age Winter Heating Payment, our replacement for Winter Fuel Payment, which is to be delivered in Scotland this Winter by the Department for Work and Pensions on behalf of the Scottish Government.https://www.gov.scot/publications/winter-fuel-payment-letter-to-uk-government/
Search for ‘Somerville letter to Liz Kendall’ and you’ll find only the National has covered it.
In August 2024:
Anas Sarwar has backed ending the Winter Fuel Payment for all pensioners and said a replacement benefit being introduced in Scotland should be “targeted” at those who need it most.
Sarwar knows, or his advisers do, means testing benefits like this is economically illiterate:
If all of the available data are pulled together and the conclusions drawn, the historical and contemporary evidence strongly suggests that the appropriate response to austerity is to increase universal provision and so stimulate economic activity, equalise damaging wealth disparity and improve both government and wider economic efficiency.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
london believes the jocks are back in the box and thanks to nicola and the continuity team they may be correct
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Ah! I see what you did there.
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Perhaps some of the senior Labour figures will donate some of the designer clothing donated to them to help cold pensioners keep warm this winter ?
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Ah, but this is the Labour respect agenda at work, well ok, I guess its much like the old Tory respect agenda, but it’s got more red in it’s logo this time and that’s quite a Change 🙂
As for the “Scottish Media” reporting on this? They are too busy making up Ferry Fairy stories or hiding news and events to focus on any attempt at proper journalism.
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Reeves is asked if taking £7,500 to buy clothes was a mistake. Reeves explains it was given by an old friend.
I will have to find an old fried to help me as Reeves has taken away my WFP oh I forgot all my old friends are in the same position as me.
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So much for those who often are heard to say:
” The ‘Scottish government should try and work with the UK government “
Fat chance of that if the various UK government’s always choose to ignore our government or rather they, as a UK government, prefer to not work with the Scottish government while controlled by the SNP .
Though the Labour UK government will work with the Labour Welsh devolved government, or rather the Labour Welsh government will do what they are telt to do by Keir Starmer and his UK Labour government.
(Which, as a position, is also exactly what would happen if Labour ever got in as the next Scottish government in 2026– where UK Labour will be the ones in charge– and not the branch office in Scotland– and Anas Sarwar , as the supposed FM, will then also do what he is telt to do by Keir Starmer and his UK Labour government).
Amazing how the Labour UK party have waited so many years to get into power in their beloved UK and now that they have, well they have blown it big time.
(Things can only get worse– for them and for us too).
Which all really gives a strong sense of how they, as a party, have not changed one iota as a political party within the UK.
Also for Scotland they will, as a party, also never ever change as they are nothing more than British Nationalists pretending to be fake patriots for a fake country.
#NotMyCountry
#PatriotismLoadOfSh*te.
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I will repeat what I said in the aftermath of the GE result. Those deluded Scotsd who voted Labour will soon come to realise that whoever governs us from Westrminster will make no material difference and as such brings Independence a step closer.
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” Search for ‘Somerville letter to Liz Kendall’ and you’ll find only the National has covered it “
” Sarwar knows, or his advisers do, means testing benefits like this is economically illiterate “
Look to the ‘impartial’ BBC Scotland for feeling the pulse of the nation and nada, yet true to form, top of HMS James Cook’s “Politics” agenda is “Labour donations ‘levelled the playing field’ says minister”, and I kid you not, ” A Scottish Labour MP has said donations made to the party were an attempt to “level the playing field” between Labour and opposition parties”….🙄
You need to scroll down to next paragraph to discover the prat spinning this shit is one Douglas Alexander, yet read between the lines of ” Trade minister Douglas Alexander said the stories about free gifts for Labour figures were “not the headlines we would have chosen” as the party holds its first conference since returning to government ” and think – Does anybody recall such headlines from HMS James Cook ever, or was it only because “not the headlines we would have chosen” was adhered to when the rest of the media were up in arms ?
Whether Alexander was elected on 31% of the electoral roll due to his promotion by BBC Scotland as “Labour grandee”, or whether ‘let’s give Labour one last chance’ in preference to Kenny MacAskill is for the birds, but of one thing I’m sure, it won’t happen again… Seriously, “level the playing field” ? WTAF ?
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There will be more letters from pensioners and their families clogging up the email box of all these unionist politicians.
Labour are targeted, especially in Scotland. Labour have lost support. They are finished. The sleeze and corruption oozing out every day. No wonder they did not want the poison chalice. Cheating and lying and illegally lining their pockets at every opportunity. Absolute greed and corruption. More unfit lawyers breaking International Law.
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O/T The Scotsman’s front page today (23 September) quotes the leader of the British Labour Party in Scotland claiming the SNP is holding Scotland back!
This is the Scotland whose offshore oil and gas industry is delivering a huge windfall tax boost to the UK Treasury. This is the Scotland whose offshore oil & gas industry is accusing Sarwar’s party in government in Westminster of decimating investment in the industry.
This is the Scotland which is seeing huge network infrastructure investment in order to export electricity generated by renewable means in Scotland – electricity in excess of its needs – to England.
This is the Scotland that out performs all other parts of the UK bar London in attracting foreign direct investment – and has done so for years.
This is the Scotland – in terms of e.g. public service delivery and in terms of poverty reduction – which has ‘survived’ Tory austerity and successive Tory governments in Westminster, and coped with Brexit and Covid better under an SNP government than Wales has under a British Labour Party government in Cardiff.
But this is the Scotland which voted against Brexit and whose businesses are continuing to be harmed by it. Whilst Sarwar’s British Labour Party is set firmly against any substantial change in EU relations from that imposed on Scotland by England’s electorate and England’s chosen Tory governments.
What and who is holding Scotland back?
Labour in government in Cardiff has not been able to counter Westminster under the Tories ‘holding Wales back’. If Sarwar’s argument is that Scotland and by implication, Wales will ‘be held back’ UNLESS the British Labour Party is in power in Westminster and also in Edinburgh/Cardiff at the same time, then he is effectively acknowledging that devolution as a utilitarian constitutional construct is a sham. And that will come as no surprise to many!
Whatever happened to British Labour’s big idea promulgated by Gordon Brown – what was it called? Federalism!
From https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/a-new-britain-renewing-our-democracy-and-rebuilding-our-economy/
The Brown-inspired Labour ‘Commission on the UK’s Future’ stopped well short of proposing federalism but it did offer a diagnosis of a broken Britain that runs directly counter to Sarwar’s accusation of who or what is holding Scotland back!
It states: ‘The UK is the most centralised country in Europe. Too many decisions affecting too many people are made by too few. The deadening, controlling hand of central government is, as we will show, stifling initiative and development throughout the country.’
And: ‘Changing not just who governs us, but how we are governed, will address a system of government that the British people perceive is broken.
‘All the evidence from recent experience is that putting too much power and control in the hands of a few leads to bad decisions and bad outcomes.
‘It led to austerity because we were told by the centre that “there was no alternative”. It led to the failure to deliver a coherent UK wide industrial strategy to support British jobs. When Covid hit, our faulty wiring was exposed ….’
The Scotsman of course has no interest in the contradictions of the British Labour Party’s views on who’s holding Scotland (and Wales) back. Easier by far to give uncritical prominence to a Sarwar quote on its front page – a front page that is then amplified by publication on the Scotland page of the BBC News website.
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Part of your comment says :
“This is the Scotland whose offshore oil and gas industry is delivering a huge windfall tax boost to the UK Treasury. This is the Scotland whose offshore oil & gas industry is accusing Sarwar’s party in government in Westminster of decimating investment in the industry.“
It is also worthwhile pointing out, this is the Offshore Oil and Gas that was said in 2014 would run out in two to three years —– better together my A*SE !!!
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