Oral Answers to Questions

Warinder Juss Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The strategy will be very clear about how we will tackle the scourge of child poverty, and the hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the importance of doing that. Labour voted against the two-child limit, but we will not promise change until we know how we are going to pay for it. That will be addressed in the work of the taskforce, with the results published in the spring.

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

11. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the extension of the household support fund in 2025-26 on low-income households.

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

15. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the extension of the household support fund in 2025-26 on low-income households.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)]

No specific assessment has been made of the impact of the household support fund on low-income households in 2025-26, although we hear routinely from local authorities across the country about the impact of the fund in supporting those who are struggling. An evaluation of the fourth iteration of the scheme, running from April 2023 to March 2024, will be published shortly, exploring the benefits of the more than 19 million awards made during this period.

[Warinder Juss]

I agree that the payment of winter fuel allowance should be means-tested, because many pensioners who receive the winter fuel allowance simply do not need it. However, there are pensioners who are not entitled to pension credit who will struggle to heat their homes. Can the Minister please confirm the extent to which the household support fund will assist those pensioners in my Wolverhampton West constituency?

[Andrew Western]

The household support fund is intended to support a wide range of households in need, including pensioner households. There has been no ringfencing of funding for specific groups since October 2022, meaning that local authorities have the flexibility to support pensioners who are just above the pension credit threshold. In the 2023-24 financial year, 26% of household support funding went towards meeting energy costs.