Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the number of households in Gosport constituency who will lose their winter fuel payment.

The estimated number of pensioner households in Gosport constituency who will lose Winter Fuel Payments is 13,577. This is based on Feb-24 Pension Credit statistics and 22/23 Winter Fuel Payment statistics, (sources below).

The estimation is calculated by subtracting the number of Pension Credit recipients for Gosport Constituency from the number of Winter Fuel Payment recipients for Gosport constituency. Please note that Pension Credit claimants are the majority of those that will be eligible for Winter Fuel Payments, not all. There are other pensioners who are eligible for Winter Fuel Payments (as they claim other means tested benefits) but they are not considered in these figures as it is not possible to do so.

Please note that the Pension Credit data is based on the 2010 Westminster Parliamentary constituencies, not 2024 in order to be comparable with the Winter Fuel Payments statistics.

Furthermore, the above does not take into account any potential increase in Pension Credit take-up we might see as a result of the Governments Pension Credit Campaign. We do not have data on those additional Pension Credit claims by Parliamentary constituencies or local authorities.

Sources used:

winter-fuel-payments-household-2022-to-2023.ods (live.com)

Stat-Xplore - Table View (dwp.gov.uk) (Feb-24 data)