Winter fuel payment in Scotland to match UK benefit
The Scottish Government's devolved version of the winter fuel payment will match the value of the UK benefit, John Swinney has announced.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed last week that the payment would be reinstated to the majority of pensioners.
Following the initial decision to cut the universal benefit, the Scottish Government was forced to delay its plans for the pension age winter heating payment, but in December it announced pensioners north of the border would receive at least £100 every year.
Speaking in Glasgow on Monday, the First Minister confirmed the Scottish Government's benefit would at least match that proposed by the UK Government.
Pensioners south of the border who earn under £35,000 will receive either £200 or £300.
'I'm very happy to confirm today that no pensioner in Scotland will receive less than they would under the new UK scheme,' he said.
'Details will be set out in due course by my Government, but the Scottish Government will always seek to do what is best for Scotland's pensioners.'
The changes announced last week will result in further increases in funding for the Scottish Government, which the First Minister later told journalists is expected to be around £120 million.
Speaking at an event on public sector reform on Monday, the First Minister hit out at the initial decision to cut the benefit.
'To be quite blunt about it, I don't believe cutting this winter lifeline was ever going to save a penny,' he said.
'Making millions of pensioners poorer makes them also colder and makes them also sicker, and that in turn puts up the bill for our social services and our NHS.'
He added: 'It's one of the reasons we were so quick to step in to protect pensioners in Scotland as best as we could from that wrong decision by the UK Government.
'But now that they've seen the error of their ways, my Government will once again to the right thing by Scotland's pensioners.'
The power over the payment was devolved to Social Security Scotland in time for it to be paid out last winter. When asked if he regretted not offering it to older Scots, the First Minister said: 'I might have had the power, but I didn't have the money and I can't spend money I don't have.
'If the UK Government cuts a budget, I can't spend it, and what we've done is we've taken a series of hard decisions to allow us, before the Labour Government came anywhere near doing a U-turn on this, to restore winter fuel payments to pensioners because of other hard decisions that I've made.
'So the SNP has kept faith with pensioners in Scotland when the Labour Party has deserted them.'
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