Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following the introduction of means-testing for the Winter Fuel Payment, what administrative arrangements they are making to deal with any increase in claims for Pension Credit; what assessment they have made of the impact of an increase in claims for Pension Credit on the processing of existing claims; and how many current civil servants are being redeployed and how many additional staff are being employed to handle an increase in claims for Pension Credit.

The Department has secured funding for additional staffing to assist with the processing of the additional Pension Credit claims being made. We have recently published Weekly Pension Credit claims received from 1 April 2024 to 22 September 2024 - GOV.UK www.gov.uk which provides the number of Pension Credit claims received by the department. We are deploying over 500 additional staff to cover the expected increase in Pension Credit applications and will endeavour to process claims as soon as possible.