Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will take steps to introduce alternative support with the cost of living for people on low incomes who are not eligible for the cost-of-living payment as a result of fluctuating income.

The Government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living and is taking action to help.

We have decided to deliver the £900 cost of living payment for eligible means-tested benefit claimants in three separate payments over 2023/24 to reduce the chance of households missing out altogether. The first payment of £301 will be made from spring 2023, the second payment of £300 from autumn 2023 and the third payment of £299 from spring 2024.

The Household Support Fund will continue until March 2024. This year long extension allows Local Authorities in England to continue to provide discretionary support to those most in need with the significantly rising cost of living. The guidance for Local Authorities for this next iteration has now been published and can be found here: 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024: Household Support Fund guidance for county councils and unitary authorities in England - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). This sets out that the fund should be used to support households in the most need, particularly those who are not eligible for other cost of living support such as Cost of Living Payments. The Devolved Administrations will receive consequential funding as usual to spend at their discretion.

In 2023/24, subject to parliamentary approval, we are uprating all benefit rates and State Pensions by 10.1%, in order to increase the number of households who can benefit from these uprating decisions the benefit cap levels are also increasing by the same amount.

To support those who are in work, from 1 April 2023 subject to parliamentary approval, the National Living Wage (NLW) will increase by 9.7% to £10.42 an hour for workers aged 23 and over - the largest ever cash increase for the NLW.

The Government's Energy Price Guarantee will save a typical British household around £900 this winter, based on what energy prices would have been under the current price cap - reducing bills by roughly a third. This is in addition to the £400 non-repayable discount to eligible households provided through the Energy Bills Support Scheme, paid over six months starting in October 2022.  Further to this, the Energy Price Guarantee will be extended from April 2023 until the end of March 2024, meaning a typical household bill will be around £3,000 per year in Great Britain.