DWP says £421m fund will provide help to pensioners who lose Winter Fuel Payment

Older people who are above the threshold to receive Pension Credit and regain their Winter Fuel Payment will be offered support from another source

State pensioners who are missing out on the Winter Fuel Payment this year will get help from a massive cost of living fund instead, the government has insisted. The Department for Work and Pensions says there will be financial assistance to help older people with heating bills if they'll no longer be eligible for the £300 annual allowance.

The DWP has invested £421 million in its Household Support Fund to extend it for six months from October to March. The fund is shared among local authorities in England, with additional cash going to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland for their own initiatives.

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall told MPs they must work with councils in their area to ensure the local cash allocation is used to help older people who are above the Pension Credit threshold and are therefore unable to regain access to the Winter Fuel Payment under its new restrictions. The comments came in a DWP oral answers session as pensioner groups gathered at a protest called by the trade union Unite outside the Houses of Parliament.

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The number of pensioners expected to receive the Winter Fuel Payment this year is expected to drop from 10.8 million to 1.5 million. To be eligible, people now have to be receiving Pension Credit or some other means-tested benefits that can be claimed by mixed-age households where one person is of pension age and the other isn't.

During the DWP session in the House of Commons on October 7, Liz Kendall said: "An estimated 880,000 of the poorest pensioners are not claiming the Pension Credit they are entitled to, so they do not get the Winter Fuel Payment or Pension Credit of up to £3,900 a year. That is why we have launched the biggest-ever drive to increase Pension Credit uptake and ensure that the poorest pensioners get the support they deserve."

In another reply, she added: "Alongside our work to increase Pension Credit uptake, the Household Support Fund is available for those just above the Pension Credit level. My own council has done a lot of work to make sure that pensioners just above that level can get extra help with the costs of heating or energy debt. There is also the Warm Home Discount, which is available not just to those on Pension Credit, but again to those just above that level if they are on low incomes and have high housing costs.

And she further explained: "This is not just about urging people to come forward and claim. We are writing to pensioners on Housing Benefit for the first time ever, and I am determined to bring forward the merger of Housing Benefit and Pension Credit, which the former Government delayed for years. I very much agree about the need to bring together social prescribing with help from the Household Support Fund and other areas to make sure pensioners get all the help they need, and about the need to work with frontline NHS staff, as we are also doing, to make sure that the poorest who may be stuck at home with chronic conditions also know what they are entitled to."

Alistair Strathern (Labour, Hitchin) said: "It is clear that one of the drivers of pensioner poverty is the sheer number of pensioners eligible for Pension Credit who have been left not claiming it for successive years by the previous Government. I welcome the Secretary of State's zeal for making sure that we put that right, but how can we as Members from across the House work with her Department to make sure that there are no unnecessary barriers for those who are eligible and in need of Pension Credit to claiming it this winter?"

Ms Kendall replied: "I would urge all hon. Members in this House to work with their local councils, as I am doing, to make sure that those on Housing Benefit and other pensioners know what they are entitled to, and to make sure that their councils know that the Household Support Fund - the £421 million we have set aside this year, despite all the problems we face - is also available to those pensioners just above the Pension Credit level."

She replied to criticism from the opposition by pointing out that the Conservatives' own 2017 manifesto had promised to means-test the Winter Fuel Payment.

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