Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that people who (a) have not qualified for the Cost of Living Payment as a result of seasonal work and (b) are receiving a nil payment for the period ending 25 May 2022, are being supported in the context of the increased costs of living.

The Government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living, which is why it is providing over £37 billion of support this year.

Those who do not meet the eligibility criteria for the first Cost of Living Payment instalment may qualify for the second instalment of £324 later in the year.

The Cost of Living Payments are only one part of the support available. All households with a domestic electricity bill across the UK will benefit from the £400 being provided through the Energy Bills Support Scheme, for example. We are also providing an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of essentials, on top of what we have already provided since October 2021, bringing the total funding for this support to £1.5 billion. In England, the current Household Support Fund is already providing £421m of support for the period 1 April – 30 September 2022. Devolved administrations have received £79 million through the Barnett formula.

We are also extending the support Jobcentres provide to people in work and on low incomes to help them to increase their earnings and move into better paid quality jobs. Through a staged roll-out, which started in April 2022, around 2.1m low-paid benefit claimants will be eligible for support to progress into higher-paid work.

This is on top of the support we have already provided by giving the lowest earners a pay rise by increasing the National Living Wage by 6.6% to £9.50 an hour, providing an extra £1,000 a year for a full-time worker and we raised the National Insurance threshold to £12,570 from 6 July 2022, which is a saving of over £330 a year for a typical employee.