Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people previously entitled to a Winter Fuel Payment in winter 2024-25 will not receive one due to the Social Fund Winter Fuel Payment Regulations 2024.

Around an estimated 10 million people in Great Britain previously entitled to Winter Fuel Payment will not receive it due to the policy reform. These are based on the 22/23 Winter Fuel Payment statistics and Feb-24 Pension Credit statistics (sources shown below).

This estimation is calculated by subtracting the number of Pension Credit recipients for Great Britain from the number of Winter Fuel Payment recipients for Great Britain. This is essentially the number of Winter Fuel Payment claimants pre-policy change not claiming Pension Credit, as an estimate of those who will no longer receive Winter fuel payment.

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

Also, the published Pension Credit figures refer to households, so the number of individuals will be higher (i.e., taking account of households where it is a couple claiming Pension Credit).

Furthermore, 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.

Source:

The Winter Fuel Payments statistics are published here: Winter Fuel Payment statistics for winter 2022 to 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Pension Credit data is published here: Pension Credit – Data from May 2018