Opinion

Pensioners being left in the cold by a Stormont Executive frozen by indecision over winter fuel payments - The Irish News view

Ministers must urgently set out how they are going to help protect the most vulnerable members of the community from fuel poverty this winter

The Government has tabled legislation to cut the winter fuel payment for pensioners, limiting it to benefit or tax credit claimants
The Stormont Executive has yet to make a decision on whether winter fuel payments for pensioners will continue in Northern Ireland (Andrew Matthews/PA)
By The Irish News

WHILE no-one in Ireland should rely on tropical weather during the summer, even by our standards this has been a dismal few months. In recent days it has been cold enough that many of us will have already turned on the central heating, resentfully reaching for the switch much earlier in the year than we would like.

Flicking on the heat is not an easy decision for far too many people in our community. Soaring energy costs have been a dominant feature of the cost of living crisis and it is appalling that for some the choice is as stark as whether ‘to heat or eat’.

Older people have had some support with their heating costs in the form of winter fuel payments. This has been a universal benefit paid to pensioners annually, worth up to £600 depending on factors such as their age and whether they live alone.

It was introduced in 1997 by Tony Blair’s then-new Labour government. In a grim reversal, one of this summer’s new Labour government’s earliest announcements was to scrap the universal aspect of the winter fuel payment in England and Wales, where it will only be available to pensioners on means-tested benefits.

However, as the payments are a devolved matter, it is up to the Executive whether it follows London or finds the cash - some estimates put the gap at £70 million - to continue to distribute it to all Northern Ireland pensioners.

That decision has been before the Executive for a month yet even with autumn galloping towards us, it has strolled through the summer and had virtually nothing to say on the matter. It has little to say on very much, in fact; as this newspaper has repeatedly pointed out, the programme for government is still a will-o’-the-wisp.

With the Executive frozen by its traditional reluctance to take difficult decisions, some pensioners already fear the worst this winter. It is essential that ministers urgently set out how they are going to help protect the most vulnerable members of the community and alleviate the real burden of fuel poverty.

That will require imagination and courage, especially as Sir Keir Starmer couldn’t have been clearer this week when he made a speech in the Downing Street rose garden, warning that the UK’s finances are in a dire state and that the October budget will be “painful”.

The prime minister has perfected a tone that would be downbeat even if he were announcing a period of mourning, but there is no reason to believe that the north will escape whatever austerity is to come from London and that a winter of discontent lies ahead for Stormont’s finances, as well as pensioners.