Could legal bid stop ‘cruel’ UK government plan to axe winter fuel benefit?
A couple from Scotland is suing the UK government over its decision to abolish an allowance for at least 10 million elderly people to spend on additional heating fuel in the winter.
Following the Labour Party’s landslide election victory in the UK’s general election on July 4, one of the first decisions Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves took was to axe the universal Winter Fuel Payment which is not means-tested and is worth 200 to 300 pounds ($260 to $390) a year, depending on age of the recipient.
The government expects to save 1.3 billion pounds ($1.7bn) in the current tax year (2024-25) and 1.5 billion pounds ($1.95bn) in subsequent years. This is part of a wider attempt to plug a 22-billion-pound ($28.58bn) shortfall in public finances, which Labour says it has inherited from the previous Conservative government.
The winter fuel allowance will now only go to pensioners who also receive other means-tested benefits such as Pension Credits. But critics say the process of applying for those benefits can be onerous and overwhelming for elderly people.
The decision, which applies to England and Wales, was swiftly followed by the devolved Scottish National Party-led Scottish government in Edinburgh which, in August, announced that it would also axe the payment. The Scottish government will save about 160 million pounds ($208m) per year as a result. It relies largely on block grants from Westminster to fund Scotland’s devolved departments and institutions.
What is the Winter Fuel Payment?
It is an allowance paid to people above state pension age during the winter months to help with the cost of additional heating. People born between September 1944 and September 1958 receive a single payment each winter of 200 pounds, while those born before that receive 300 pounds.
The allowance was introduced by Tony Blair’s Labour government shortly after it came to power in 1997. Some elderly people were dying from the cold during the winter because they could not afford to heat their homes.
Changes to the UK state pension age meant that the age of those qualifying for the benefit rose from 65 in winter 2020-21 to 66 in winter 2021-22 and onwards.
The decision by the current Labour government to scrap the allowance on a universal basis means that about 10 million pensioners in England and Wales will lose access to the yearly subsidy.
