Scottish Labour believes access to the winter fuel allowance could be widened in Scotland as it tries to fight off its opponents’ attacks before the next Holyrood election.
Scotland will be able to decide which pensioners get the allowance from October next year under further devolution of benefits to Holyrood, eight months before a Scottish parliamentary election that Labour sees as critical to its revival.
Labour strategists in Scotland fear the decision by the chancellor of the UK government, Rachel Reeves, to cut eligibility for the benefit could significantly damage their chances of beating the Scottish National party (SNP) in May 2026.
Many Scottish voters are furious with the decision; compared with most of the rest of the UK, Scotland experiences colder temperatures and longer winters, with a higher number of damp and badly insulated homes.
After months of progress for Scottish Labour in Holyrood opinion polls, the latest surveys suggest the party is slipping behind the SNP, having been neck and neck for months. Party leaders have said the Scottish electorate is “volatile” and could easily reject Labour in 2026.
The polls suggest the winter fuel allowance cut and the allegations over the gifts of free clothing, glasses and football tickets to Keir Starmer and his deputy, Angela Rayner, have damaged support for Labour across the UK.
Despite the furore over those gifts, Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, and Ian Murray, the Scottish secretary, have defended accepting free hospitality to watch Liverpool play at Anfield last Saturday, on the eve of the party conference.
A Scottish Labour spokesperson said: “Ian and Anas attended as the guests of Scottish Salmon – an important strategic partner in promoting brand Scotland. All meetings are declared in the usual way.”
Although the winter fuel allowance is paid by the Scottish government in Scotland, the funding for it will fall by at least £140m because of the chancellor’s cut. As a result, the SNP government copied Reeves’ decision to restrict it to those on pension credit.
Around 770,000 pensioners are likely to be affected, according to Scottish government estimates. Scottish voters largely blame Reeves for the decision.
An activist from the Scottish Pensioners Forum, Bill Lynch, travelled from Dundee overnight to picket the Labour conference in Liverpool on Monday.
“When Theresa May proposed this in 2017, Labour research suggested there would be 4,000 excess deaths,” Lynch said. “Is that a place where Labour want to be? There are a lot of people who aren’t millionaires who will lose out and it’s those we have to protect.”
In October next year, ministers in Edinburgh will replace it with a new Scottish benefit called the pension-age winter heating payment. Labour sources believe it could be extended to pensioners who receive housing benefits or attendance allowance.
Sarwar and Murray have lobbied Starmer, Reeves and other cabinet ministers in London to remember their policies directly affect Labour’s chances of defeating the SNP. It is understood Welsh Labour leaders have also done so.
Sarwar told Labour conference on Monday that the general election landslide in July was a “job half done” because it still faced a Holyrood election in 2026.
Murray told delegates that in Scotland “the real hard work started the day after the election” to get rid of the SNP government.
“Those who voted for Labour in Scotland on the 4th of July voted for change because they had been let down badly by their two governments,” he said. “They did not ‘come home’ to Labour.
“They chose us in the hope and expectation that we will deliver for them. And that is what we must, and are determined, to do.”