Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many people have applied for Pension Credit since 5 July 2024; and how many have been approved.

Pension credit statistics are collated on a weekly (Monday – Sunday) cycle. This means we cannot provide a response aligned to 5 July 2024. However, we can provide a count of claims and awards from week commencing 8 July 2024, as follows:

• Between week commencing 8 July 2024 and the end of week commencing 11 November 2024 we received 160,900 claims for Pensions Credit.
• Between week commencing 8 July 2024 and the end of week commencing 11 November 2024, 49,000 claims for Pension Credit were awarded.

DWP currently works to a planned timescale of 50 working days to clear Pension Credit claims.

Please note, the awarded volumes since 8 July 2024 will include some claims that were made before 5 July 2024. This is because the Department currently reports clearance times by the week the claim was cleared, rather than the week the claim was made.

Statistics on Pension Credit award volumes were published on 28 November 2024. This publication includes weekly numbers of applications that were received, awarded and not awarded, up to 17 November 2024. Pension Credit applications and awards: November 2024 - GOV.UK.

The next publication of Pension Credit application statistics is due around the end of February 2025 and will cover the data up to week commencing 10 February 2025.