ANAS SARWAR, leader of the Scottish Labour Party, took everyone by surprise — at least everyone outside his inner circle — when he announced last week that should Labour win the 2026 election in Scotland, all pensioners would receive a payment of the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment which will be paid by Social Security Scotland.

This is due to replace the current winter fuel benefit currently administered by DWP in 2025-26. The new benefit being proposed by Sarwar, however, would be “tapered” so that the wealthiest households received less.

Rachel Reeves had, of course, used the Budget to announce that the new Labour government would end winter fuel payments at the British level for most pensioners, with only those receiving means-tested benefits entitled to receive it from now on.

Indeed, Sarwar has gone further than promising jam tomorrow. No doubt, with a view to turning the heat up on the SNP, Scottish Labour has put down amendments to social security legislation in Holyrood to be debated on Tuesday December 3.

Scottish Labour’s amendments would mean Scottish ministers bringing in new regulations to make all pensioners eligible for winter heating support before the end of November next year. The amendments would also allow ministers to recover part or all of any payment made to households with an income over a specified amount — in other words, “taper” the award.

The surprise at Sarwar’s stance is based on his forthright initial support for the Budget, despite his obvious discomfort with the winter fuel payments changes — he has always insisted the criteria for eligibility were too restrictive.

As covered in the Morning Star, he told Scottish delegates at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, who were expressing concern about the Budget decision, that Labour was not a party of “tax and spend.”

Not only that, but he oversaw Scottish Labour’s 37 MPs trooping through the lobby in support of the measure. He did not, and still has not, called for the Labour leadership to reverse its decision, the fastest and fairest way to resolve this crisis.

However, he will not only have noted that even where Scottish Labour has won in recent local government by-elections — and it has lost seats it should not have — Labour’s vote has stalled or even fallen. They have only succeeded in the majority of contests with the SNP because the SNP has done even worse.

And perhaps, too, he is aware that the general public’s attitude to winter fuel payments has changed. Introduced by Gordon Brown in 1997 during the “let the good times roll” early period of New Labour, by 2012, ComRes polling found 75 per cent of the public was opposed to paying it as a universal, as opposed to a means-tested benefit.

Compare that to YouGov polling in late July of this year. Forty-seven per cent supported winter fuel payments being means tested, 38 per cent opposed, and 15 per cent opted for “don’t know.”

There may still be a greater number in favour of means testing, but obviously, with the impact of austerity, there is clearly a better understanding among the population of the need for government support that is not crudely targeted, leading to some people no longer receiving benefits because they are marginally beyond a designated level of income.

The figures for Scotland in that poll, incidentally, were not significantly different from the British figures: 44 per cent supported the benefit being means tested, 37 per cent opposed and 18 per cent were don’t knows.

A more striking response, perhaps, was that of Labour Party members themselves: in a Labour List poll of 1,260 respondents, only 26.1 per cent said Labour was right to move towards the means-tested model, and 39.3 per cent opposed it, a sentiment reflected in September when the Labour Party conference delegates rejected the changes.

As well as the reaction of Labour Party activists and by-election numbers, Sarwar’s decision was almost certainly influenced by Scottish Labour’s fall in popularity. Recent polls have Scottish Labour trailing the SNP in both first-past-the-post seats and the list-based regional seats.

If Sarwar is successful in restoring both party members and the wider Scottish electorate to the post-election enthusiasm that gave Scottish Labour a polling lead over the SNP during the summer, does that suggest he may now be tempted to put even more red water between himself and Keir Starmer?

The answer to that is No. Sarwar’s initiatives are tactical, not ideological. When Sarwar said that Labour is not a party of tax and spend and that Scots already pay enough tax, precisely the same position as the SNP leader John Swinney, he meant it.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has made it clear there will be no more “tax hikes” for business, and there is precious little chance that she will look to wealth taxes to fill any future black holes.

So instead of Barnett consequentials, the Scottish government will be dealing with consequences of another sort: underfunded public services with no capacity to use borrowing for either investment or revenue purposes because the Scottish Parliament does not have sufficient powers in that area.

Furthermore, Sarwar has not asked for them, and Starmer has no intention of offering them. If Sarwar does win power, he will fund his Pension Age Winter Heating Payment on the basis of existing resources because, like Reeves, Sarwar has shown not the slightest inclination in growing Scotland’s tax base through increased corporate or individual wealth or property taxes.

Whether he can win power depends a good deal on the SNP. If they are smart enough to spike his guns and deliver an improved Pension Age Winter Heating Payment, they may well keep their lead over Labour.

But they, too, live in a world confined by the tenets of neoliberalism and fiscal rectitude. As always, if working-class Scots want a fairer system, they are going to have to fight for it, inside and outside the parties that purport to represent them.