Winter Fuel Payment

(asked on 16th June 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to remove the qualifying date for the Winter Fuel Payment to ensure that all those in receipt of the State Pension will be eligible to receive this payment by the end of the calendar year.


Answered by
Guy Opperman Portrait
Guy Opperman
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This question was answered on 22nd June 2022

The policy since the introduction of the Social Fund Winter Fuel Payment Amendment Regulations 1999 has been the same under all Governments: Labour; the Coalition; and Conservative.

It has always been the aim to make Winter Fuel Payments before Christmas. Therefore, having a September qualifying week allows the Department the time to make the required checks on entitlement, calculate the payment an individual is entitled to, issue the notifications and start to make the payments; a process which begins in November.

The DWP makes over 11 million Winter Fuel Payments every year. The majority - over 99% - are paid automatically without the need to claim before Christmas. A small number of pensioners need to claim the Winter Fuel Payment and have until 31 March 2023 to do so.

There are no plans to change the qualifying criteria for Winter Fuel Payments. For winter 2022/23 a person has to have reached State Pension age on or before the end of the September qualifying week which is set out in legislation and is 19-25 September 2022.

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