LABOUR plans to means-test winter fuel payments without consulting Holyrood have left the Scottish benefit’s future hanging in the balance, Scotland’s government warned today.

SNP social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville hit out at the decision to slash eligibility for the payment to pensioners in England and Wales on the eve of the benefit becoming devolved.

The Scottish government’s £300 pension age winter heating payment was planned to continue in the universal footsteps of the old UK scheme.