Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the number of pensioners who will be affected by proposed changes to the eligibility criteria for the Winter Fuel Payment in South West Devon constituency.

The Pension Credit data that is used is based on the 2010 Westminster Parliamentary constituencies, not 2024, in order to be comparable with the Winter Fuel Payments statistics. It is estimated that around 20,000 people in South West Devon constituency will be affected by the change in policy. This is based on Feb-24 Pension Credit statistics and 22-23 Winter Fuel Payments statistics (sources below).

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

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

Furthermore, 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).

In addition to 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.

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