COLIN CAMPBELL: Winter blow to pensioners as Chancellor Rachel Reeves shames Labour
Rachel Reeves lost no time in seeking to live up to her pledge that there would be no profligacy with public money under a new Labour government. And so the very first target in her sights became the winter fuel payment and the very first people to lose out will be pensioners, many of whom will be on the breadline.
Some will still qualify for the payout but many others with an income just fractionally higher will lose out under the new system. Many older folk outwith the limited spread of "fat-cat pensioners" will be penalised by the Chancellor’s decision to end the support payment going to all senior citizens.
Immediate and fully justified warnings were issued that these cuts would hit people in the wintry Highlands hardest. But they’re going ahead anyway.
This region did not follow much of the rest of Scotland by turning to Labour at the general election. There are no eager new Labour MPs in these parts. If there had been, they'd have some explaining to do.
This slashing of the fuel payment looked a harsh decision in mid-summer and it will look even more so as the days shorten and the temperatures fall towards winter.
• Sign up for our free newsletters
Pensioners in need of warmth will be the very first folk to lose out on money that has helped sustain them in recent times. And with around five million people "inactive" and on benefits that seems a grossly and almost inexplicably unfair way to begin trimming the welfare spending bill.
I, like most people of my age, worked all my life in times when not working simply seemed much less of an option. There was no "work from home" offering from sympathetic employers, and there were no politicians or pressure groups holding forth on the need to ensure "a proper work-life-leisure" balance.
And if you were unlucky enough not to have a job it was an absolute priority to get one, without being too choosy in the applications process.
There’s no doubt that being out of work is still linked to some degree at least with hardship. But with jobs more freely available than they've ever been and so many choosing to claim benefits rather than fill a vacancy, it's obviously not as hard as it was before.
And if you’re a pensioner, do you remember the time when it was commonplace for people to be out of work and claiming benefits because of mental health issues of all manner and kind? Probably not, because it didn’t exist. But countrywide these "issues" are leading to hundreds of thousands of people being jobless and claiming benefits in record, unprecedented numbers. Many are no doubt suffering real problems. But questions are rightly being asked about how many are not.
Rachel Reeves obviously didn't fancy trying to cut back welfare spending largesse in these particular areas. Far too tricky and prone to pressure group backlash. Much easier just to remove the winter fuel payment from vulnerable pensioners instead.
In Inverness, councillors should try and help by increasing the small winter payment made available from the Common Good Fund and make it less complicated to claim it. That would bring some benefit to those most under duress.
But the real damage from Reeves has been done. It's a rotten, lousy, shameful way for Labour to begin their tenure in office as so much free money is poured out in much less deserving directions.
