Believe in Scotland welcomes Scottish Government mitigation of Labour's heartless Winter Fuel Payment cut.

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp the founder of the Believe in Scotland campaign and Wellbeing Pension Campaign has welcomed what he called “A victory for pensioner wellbeing and common sense”. 

The UK Government's cut to the Winter Fuel Payment (WFP) is the single largest attack on pensioner wellbeing in living memory.

Believe in Scotland campaigned against this cut with a billboard, video and social media campaign pointing out that Labour's own research claimed that as many as 4,000 pensioners could die if the WFP was cut. 

The fact that the WFP was devolved to the Scottish Government before it was cut and that Labour in Scotland voted for the cut but then claimed they would mitigate it if they were in government is clearly a naked political ploy. Playing political games with the lives and general wellbeing of Scotland’s pensioners is unworthy of any elected politician or political party.

BiS welcomes the Scottish Government decision to rise above Labour's insidious political posturing and decide for itself to partially mitigate the cut to the WFP for pensioners in Scotland for the 2024/25 budget period. We also welcome the further £20m for the Scottish Welfare Fund and another £20m for Warmer Homes Scotland in this financial year and await details of how this can be used immediately to help those suffering the most and unable to heat their homes.

Mitigating the cut was the ethical thing to do.

Believe in Scotland met with the Scottish Government after they initially said they could not afford to mitigate the WFP cut. We informed them of our plans for the billboard campaign and told them in no uncertain terms that they had no choice but to mitigate the Labour UK-wide cut one way or another. Given the certainty that Scottish Labour would make a political play on the issue, despite being the cause of the problem, the Scottish Government should have acted sooner, announcing they would mitigate, preventing Labour having a leg to stand on.

The Scottish Government would not have been able to avoid the blame for any cold-related deaths this winter, even if there are fewer than in past years. However, the reason for finding the money in the Scottish budget to mitigate the WFP cut is not to avoid playing the political games of the unionist parties but simply because it is the ethical thing to do.

Mitigating the WFP cut will send a message to both Labour’s and the Union’s core block of older voters that it’s the Scottish Government and not Labour who cares about the wellbeing of pensioners in Scotland. A message made possible due to the Labour party’s heartless incompetence.

MacIntyre-Kemp commented, “The Wellbeing of Scotland’s citizens must be core to the operating principles of the Scottish Government and the core value of the cause of independence. The mitigation of Labour’s Winter Fuel Payment cut combined with the SNP manifesto commitment to pay a Wellbeing Pension is a welcome start but the Scottish Government must continue to listen to the calls from Believe in Scotland and the grassroots independence movement that we represent, and from their own party members, to refocus on a Wellbeing Economic Approach.

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