Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 18 January 2016 to Question 22115, whether information on the number and value of cold weather payments is kept by local authority area; what data his Department keeps on cold weather payments; and what steps his Department has taken to keep Parliament updated about cold weather payments.

Data relating to Cold Weather Payments is not recorded or stored by local authority area. Each UK postcode is linked to a weather station, so local authority areas could be split between 2 or more weather stations. The data is recorded and stored based on the weather stations and their linked postcodes.

My department publishes weekly estimates of the number of CWP payments made and estimated expenditure, these figures can be found here: (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/cold-weather-payment-statistics-2015-to-2016).

Full details of the number of triggers, the number of payments and the expenditure for every weather station for the whole Cold Weather Payment season is published annually in The Social Fund Annual Report.