Winter Fuel Payment changes confirmed with people on these 9 benefits now excluded

Labour's cuts to this year's Winter Fuel Payment will see around 10 million people lose out on the cash to help with heating bills. The allowance provides £200 or £300 directly into the bank accounts of those who are eligible.

Restrictions announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in July were not mentioned in the Autumn Budget speech on October 30 but official documentation confirms the restrictions are going ahead. In it, the Government states: "The Winter Fuel Payment will be targeted to those in receipt of Pension Credit or certain other income-related benefits from winter 2024-25, saving an average £1.5billion of taxpayers’ money each year."

First introduced in 1997, the Winter Fuel Payment was previously available to anyone in the UK who had reached pension age to help with the cost of heating bills. Paid annually every winter, the DWP allowance ranged between £100 and £300. Extra cost of living payments of £150 or £300 were added on top for winter 2022/2023 and 2023/2024, taking the maximum to £600.

There are no more direct DWP cost of living payments so that top-up has been axed, in addition to the benefit restrictions that are now imposed. Some will therefore find themselves up to £600 worse off this winter.

READ MORE:

• State pensioners who lose Winter Fuel Payment to get up to £200 for energy bills
• DWP to give higher payment rises to millions of people on these five benefitS and pensions

People in pensioner households or mixed-age households where one partner is a pensioner and the other isn't will now qualify if they are receiving any of seven means-tested benefits. These include Pension Credit, Income Support, income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), and income-based Jobseeker's Allowance - all of which were also in the previous eligibility criteria for the fuel payment - along with Universal Credit, Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, which are also means-tested and have been newly added to the list.

Nine benefits that were previously eligible during past years of the scheme have been removed from the list. These are State Pension, Attendance Allowance, Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Carer's Allowance, Disability Living Allowance (DLA), War Pensions Scheme, Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit, Incapacity Benefit and Industrial Death Benefit.

Other benefits have never been on the qualifying list. For instance, Bereavement Support Payment, which is for people who were under State Pension age when their partner died, and contribution-based New Style Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), which is worked out on NI records rather than income/savings, weren't part of the previous eligibility criteria and remain excluded. Similarly, New Style Jobseeker's Allowance hasn't ever been among the accepted benefits for the allowance.

This year's Winter Fuel Payment will be £200 for those who were born between September 23, 1944, and September 22, 1958, and a higher level of £300 for the over-80s, who will have been born before September 23, 1944.

Scotland had been set to replace the allowance by introducing its own Pension Age Winter Heating Payment for all pensioners. However, reduced funding levels mean it will now have to follow the same cutbacks as the Winter Fuel Payment this year and delay its own initiative until next year.

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