Martin Lewis has explained how the government might not be able to cut Winter Fuel Payments for pensioners this year. Speaking on Radio 5 Live today (Thursday, September 26), the Money Saving Expert founder explained that this morning, a law centre in Scotland launched a case with two pensioners to review Winter Fuel Payments in the country.
This will judicially review the Scottish government's decision to implement the cut, and also challenge the UK government's decision to cut the Winter Fuel Payments in the first place.
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Martin said that the challenge is specifically related to the Equality Act of 2010, where public bodies and lawmakers have a duty to consider how their decisions and actions will affect people with different protected characteristics, including age and disability.
Martin said: "If this were to succeed – and there's quite a track record in Scotland of this type of thing going through to challenge Government decisions – it could mean it forces the Government [...] to do an equality impact assessment, which is not quick.
"That would mean they could not impose the universal cut this year, so it would delay it. This is my interpretation: it wouldn't stop it happening, but it would postpone it for a year."
The Money Saving Expert (MSE) team explained that while the case is being raised in Scotland, its outcome could also apply in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. If the court finds that the government didn't fulfil its duties under the Equality Act 2010, or didn’t follow procedural fairness by failing to consult pensioners, then it would make the decision to restrict the payments as unlawful.
In short, it would reverse the government decision to scrap the Winter Fuel Payments in the first place, and they would be reinstated to the level they were in before the cut was announced. And, given that any assessments, or the review itself, will take a significant amount of time to complete, they will not be done before the Winter Fuel Payments are due to be sent out in November and December this year.
The MSE team say this would effectively mean reinstating the payments for all pensioners this winter. But it's very early days, the team warn, as the case is still in its early stages.
A Government spokesperson declined to comment on the legal case, instead reiterating that it was right to "target support to those who need it most" due to the "dire state of public finances we have inherited".
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