SCOTTISH Labour has pledged to mitigate the impact of the British government’s means test on winter fuel payments with a new one.

Just weeks after winning office, Chancellor Rachel Reeves chose to abandon pensioners’ universal entitlement to winter fuel payments and use eligibility for pensions credit to gatekeep the benefit.

More than 10 million pensioners across Britain lost the payments as a result, including 900,000 in Scotland when the SNP Scottish government followed Labour’s lead.