Oral Answers to Questions

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

What support her Department provides to benefit recipients to help meet heating costs in winter 2020-21.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman) [V]]

Winter fuel payments of between £100 and £300 are provided to all those of state pension age. In addition, certain benefit recipients can also receive payments from the warm home discount scheme and the cold weather payment scheme. As mentioned by the Secretary of State earlier, we have introduced a covid winter grant scheme, which has made £170 million available to English local authorities.

[Harriett Baldwin]

Obviously the weather has been very cold and families are spending much more time at home, so I welcome all that additional support to help with heating. Will the Minister clarify whether the money is paid automatically or families must actively apply for it?

[Guy Opperman]

Worcestershire received £1.6 million to provide support to vulnerable households and families. This can be used to support the costs of heating, utility bills and various other items, and is available at the local authority’s discretion. Clearly, my hon. Friend should contact her local councillors and the leader of the local authority for further details.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

What steps she is taking to increase pension credit uptake using new awareness raising campaigns.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman) [V]]

In February last year, we launched a nationwide campaign to raise awareness of pension credit and have continued to make that case throughout the past year, notwithstanding the difficulties of the pandemic. The Department for Work and Pensions is currently considering an internal review of communication products to identify further improvements in our messaging, with many more aspects to be pursued this year.

[Andrew Rosindell [V]]

The Minister will know that uptake of pension credit has remained below 65% since 2010. Although, as he said, there was an awareness campaign in 2020, with good intentions, it was only 12 weeks long and partly occurred during the pandemic. Does he agree with me, and others, including the charity Independent Age, that rather than being one-off events, such awareness campaigns should be part of a wider long-term strategy and take advantage of new innovations and channels?

[Guy Opperman]

We plan to use existing Government letters on the attendance allowance and state pension, and other letters that the Government send out, to help to promote pension credit. We are also discussing a joint working arrangement with the BBC. We continue to make all efforts to try to promote pension credit.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab) [V]]

If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.