Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to help increase the uptake of Pension Credit among eligible pensioners.

The Government is committed to ensuring that all pensioners receive the support to which they are entitled. That is why we have been running the biggest ever Pension Credit taken-up campaign, promoting Pension Credit to eligible pensioners and their family and friends through adverts on television and radio; on social media and on digital screens in GP surgeries and Post Offices, as well as in the press. The latest burst of the campaign began in September, and further promotional activity is planned until the end of the financial year.

We are making better use of data to directly target potentially eligible households. Since February, all new Housing Benefit claimants who may be eligible have been invited to apply for Pension Credit. In September, the Department conducted a trial in partnership with Age UK and Independent Age targeting 2,000 households in England identified using HMRC and DWP data.

We are also undertaking research specifically looking into the factors that motivate people to make a claim as well as why some older people do not claim benefits to which they could be entitled, in order to build the evidence of what works to increase take-up.