The decision to means-test the winter fuel payment in Scotland “will cause more people to die”, a senior trade unionist has warned. Dave Moxham, STUC deputy general secretary, said older Scots were “frightened” by the decision by SNP ministers to replicate a cut previously announced by Rachel Reeves, the UK Chancellor.
He spoke out ahead of a symbolic vote on the last day of the Labour conference in Liverpool calling for the benefit to be restored. The decision to means-test the payment will affect around nine million pensioners across the UK and nearly 900,000 in Scotland.
Reeves has defended the cut as necessary at a time when the UK public finances face a £22billion black hole caused by unaffordable spending commitments by the previous Tory government at Westminster. The decision has provoked fury across the left of the Labour Party and the wider trade union movement.
SNP ministers have the power to restore the winter fuel payment in Scotland but have so far insisted they do not have the money to do so. Asked if it was inevitable the UK Government would have to reverse the cut, Moxham told BBC Radio Scotland: “We hope there will be a U-turn.
“The speech yesterday was a concerted attempt in a way to be more optimistic about some things. The Prime Minister was able to point to improvements in workers’ rights, to the nationalisation of rail, to GB Energy.
“It was Harold MacMillan who said ‘You’ve never had it so good’ – he [Starmer] was fast becoming the Prime Minister whose mantra would be: ‘You’ll never get it so bad’. So there was an attempt to be more optimistic.
“Unfortunately, the pledge that Labour wouldn’t be the Government of austerity was not borne out by the recommitment on this measure on winter fuel and a lack of ambition on public spending.”
Asked why pensioners who owned million or half-million pound properties should receive the benefit, Moxham said: “Find a way to make the benefit taxable, so that those who have the biggest incomes pay it back.
“There are other ways to ensure our former members, who paid into small pensions, who are just above that line, don’t suffer this winter. We know that many of them are frightened, and we know, frankly, that it will cause more people to die.”
Asked what he had thought of Labour’s time in power so far, Moxham added: “It’s a mixed report card. There are some really positive things and we have to remember what went before. The concern is that stability means standing still. And if you’re standing still when other countries are investing, when other countries are boosting their public services, that standing still means moving backwards.”
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