The SNP Government is to force a vote at Holyrood calling for cuts to the winter fuel payment to be reversed.
John Swinney will lead a debate on Tuesday at the Scottish Parliament calling on the UK Government to perform a u-turn on the decision to make the benefit means-tested.
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has faced a backlash over the move amid claims it could lead to more deaths across the country this winter.
The UK Government has insisted it has to make difficult decisions to plug a £22 billion blackhole in the public finances caused by the unfunded spending commitments by the previous Tory administration.
The Scottish Government has the powers to mitigate the cut to the winter fuel payment but has insisted it does not have the £160m it would cost to do so.
The vote at Holyrood will be purely symbolically but is likely to prove politically awkward for Scottish Labour.
Anas Sarwar has previously suggested he was open to making the benefit more widely available to Scots, beyond the remit set out by Reeves.
SNP ministers announced in August that almost one million Scottish pensioners would lose their winter fuel payments from this year.
The payment of between £100 and £300 will now only go to 130,000 OAPs in receipt of Pension Credit and other means-tested benefits – 900,000 fewer than last year.
It means the SNP will break a 2021 Holyrood election manifesto pledge not to means test the benefit, control over which was recently devolved to the Scottish Parliament.
Swinney has argued he had no choice but to follow Reeves’ decision to means test the payment south of the border as the decision led to a £160 million cut in the SNP government’s funding.
Labour published an analysis in 2017, when the party was in opposition at Westminster, estimating that restricting winter fuel payments could lead to an additional 3,850 pensioner deaths across the UK.
The Scottish Government has previously admitted it has carried out no such analysis.
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