THE UK government must “re-evaluate” freezing the personal tax threshold at the Budget, a decision which risks plunging more low-income pensioners into poverty, according the Scottish Pensioners Forum (SPF) today.

The STUC-backed organisation, which campaigns on behalf of older people in Scotland, warned that Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s plan not to uprate the tax-free allowance with inflation will not only hit those with second or work pensions, but mean that those reliant on the state pension alone could find themselves paying income tax on it within two years.

Warning that Ms Reeves risked repeating the mistake of last year’s changes to winter fuel allowance entitlement, which disproportionately hit pensioners just above the pension credit threshold, SPF chair David Edwards said: “This threshold freeze isn’t fiscal prudence — it’s a stealth tax on those who can least afford it.

“Low-income pensioners aren’t suddenly earning more; they’re simply being punished because the tax threshold stands still while everything else gets more expensive.

“Calling this responsible budgeting is like patching a leaking roof with wallpaper.

“This decision is up there with the incompetence and lack of sensitivity they displayed over the winter fuel allowance last year — it truly does beggar belief.

“The SPF is urging the UK government to re-evaluate the freeze, any failure to act will only further compromise wellbeing and widen existing inequalities for older people.”

Speaking on Thursday’s Martin Lewis Money Show Live on ITV, Ms Reeves said the threshold freeze would stay, but acknowledging the challenge for those reliant on the state pension, she pledged: “In this parliament they will not have to pay the tax. 

“Further out, I am not able to make any commitments on that, but we are just looking at a simple workaround at the moment.”