Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of four-weekly State Pension payments on the ability of pensioners to plan financially.

The current State Pension payment regime has been in place since 6 April 2010 for those people who reached pensionable age on or after that date.

However, to make the opportunity of being paid calendar monthly available, there would need to be significant and very costly system changes and not just to systems used by this Department – HMRC would also be affected. It is not something the Department is considering at this time, but it remains an option should there be a review of the method of payments in the future.