Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many claims for Pension Credit were made between the announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 29 July (HC Deb, col 1038) of the removal of the Winter Fuel Payment to 30 November inclusive; and how this compares with claims in the same period in 2023.

On 28 November we published Pension Credit applications and award statistics. This publication provides application volumes up to 17 November 2024. Pension Credit applications and awards: November 2024 - GOV.UK, which is the nearest available data to the 30 November.

• This shows we have received around 150,000 applications since the announcement on 29 July 2024 to 17 November 2024.
• In the previous year we received around 67,000 applications for the closest comparable period, 31 July 2023 to 19 November 2023.

Please note, the figures presented are from DWP’s Pension Credit system which has previously been collected for internal departmental operations use only and has not been quality assured to Official Statistics publication standards.