LABOUR is proposing to bring forward payment of the winter fuel allowance from December to July to help 4.6 million UK pensioners, including almost 200,000 Scots living in rural areas, get their domestic heating oil more cheaply.
Margaret Curran, the Shadow Scottish Secretary, announcing the policy during a visit to Stornoway, said the move was all part of Labour's drive to help combat the cost of living crisis for older people.
She said: "Heating oil invariably goes up before the winter payments come in, so this would allow people to get their fuel early; they would get more heating oil for their money."
The Labour frontbencher noted how since 2005, heating oil prices had doubled.
The 4.6 million pensioners who use off-grid energy such as oil-fired heating, solid fuel or liquid petroleum gas are more likely to be in fuel poverty than those on-grid. They represent 15% of UK households. In Scotland, 197,000 people or 8.4% of the population use off- grid energy.
Winter fuel payments range from £100 to £300, depending on benefits and age, and are usually paid in November and December.
In a further move, Ms Curran announced that off-grid energy would come under the party's proposed new regulator, which would ensure that companies providing heating oil acted in a fair way and did not increase their prices before July to negate Labour's move.
A persistent advocate of bringing forward tax-free winter fuel payments to help off-grid households has been Ms Curran's political opponent Mike Weir, the SNP MP for Angus.
He sought unsuccessfully to introduce a Private Member's Bill to this effect in September 2012 and secured a Commons debate on the subject two months later and again in April last year.
"I have been pursuing this issue for years, including when Labour were in power and they refused to do it. Bringing it forward now is a sensible move; better late than never," said Mr Weir, who made clear he would continue tpo press the Coalition Government to bring in the change.
He has a 10-minute rule bill on the subject, which is a parliamentary means of keeping an issue in the public eye.
The UK Government's main objection to early winter fuel payments for off-grid households is that it would be bureaucratically burdensome and costly to identify particular groups among the benefit recipients and that it was much better to target those off-grid households experiencing difficulties.
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