Nicola Sturgeon’s government is facing fresh difficulties over the devolution of new powers, calling into question the future of two benefits. The Energy Company Obligation helps low-income families with heating their homes, while the Warm Home Discount scheme provides £140 off electricity bills for hard-up pensioners. Scottish ministers have written to the UK government asking for clarification of the provision of the benefits beyond 2021, indicating that it might be difficult to introduce any kind of Scottish versions of the schemes, which it says were are only partly devolved under the Scotland Act 2016. Their correspondence states that it will not be able to keep Scottish versions of the scheme running if the Westminster government decided to end any of the programmes.
Times 6th May 2018 read more »
