Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled You could get Pension Credit – Week of Action to drive take up, published on 1 September 2024, whether she has made an assessment of the impact of that campaign on trends in the level of applications for Pension Credit.

The department has secured funding to support increased staffing and fund our communications strategy to support our programme of activity to drive up Pension Credit claims. The latest data available shows we have received around 38,500 Pension Credit claims in the 5 weeks since the announcement on 29th July (which is up to and including w/c 26th August).

This represents a 115% increase in Pension Credit claims received by the Department in the past 5 weeks compared to the 5 weeks before.