Peter John Fanning and Florence Agnes Fanning for Judicial Review of the decisions by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Scottish Ministers to cut the Winter Fuel Payment (Court of Session) [2025] CSOH 50 (13 June 2025)

Executive summary

The Court of Session judgment concerns a judicial review challenge to decisions by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Scottish Ministers to cut winter fuel support for winter 2024/25. The petitioners sought declarators, reduction of the challenged policy decisions and regulations, and orders relating to Equality Act compliance and consultation, but the source text provided does not include the court’s final holdings on those claims.

Key points

• Petitioners: Peter John Fanning and Florence Agnes Fanning; respondents: the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Scottish Ministers.
• Challenge focused on the change from universal winter fuel support to means-tested support linked to Pension Credit, and on the Scottish Pension Age Winter Heating Payment.
• Claims included failure to comply with the Equality Act 2010 public sector equality duty, inadequate EQIA, failure to consult, irrationality/Wednesbury unreasonableness, and Human Rights Act arguments under Articles 2 and 8.
• The judgment’s introductory sections explain the devolution/funding context, including the transfer of winter heating assistance competence to Scottish Ministers and the Block Grant Adjustment mechanism.
• The source text excerpt does not state whether the petition succeeded or failed, so no sanctions/export-control consequence is identified in the excerpt.

Why it matters

This is a public-law challenge to welfare-policy changes with devolution and fiscal-framework implications, not a sanctions or export-control decision. Its relevance to sovereign risk lies in how courts may scrutinize rapid policy shifts, consultation, and equality impact processes in politically sensitive spending decisions.

Implications

For compliance and litigation strategy, the excerpt highlights that welfare policy decisions affecting protected groups can trigger Equality Act, consultation, irrationality, and human-rights challenges, especially where there is a fast policy reversal and devolved implementation. But because the provided text stops before the court’s dispositive reasoning and order, it does not yet show any concrete enforcement change or precedent outcome to adjust sanctions or national-security compliance programs.