Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many in-work working-age households received winter fuel payments in 2013-14; what estimate he has made of how many such households will be claiming winter fuel payments in each of the next four financial years; and what assessment he has made of the effect of equalising the state pension age for men and women on the take-up of winter fuel payments.
Information about how many in-work working-age households received Winter Fuel Payments in 2013-14 is not available.
The table below shows the number of people aged under 65 receiving a Winter Fuel Payment and the associated expenditure in years 2009-10 to 2018-19 inclusive:
| Expenditure (£m) | Caseload (000s) |
2009/10 | 640.8 | 3,358 |
2010/11 | 624.1 | 3,265 |
2011/12 | 451.5 | 2,927 |
2012/13 | 385.4 | 2,484 |
2013/14 | 324.1 | 2,056 |
2014/15 | 268.2 | 1,714 |
2015/16 | 215.8 | 1,389 |
2016/17 | 157.1 | 1,019 |
2017/18 | 85.8 | 563 |
2018/19 | 14.8 | 95 |
Notes
Numbers are for Winter Fuel Payments made to those eligible in Great Britain, European Economic Area and Switzerland aged 60-64: outturn to 2013-14; forecast 2014/15 onwards.
Winter Fuel Payments in 2009-10 and 2010-11 included one-off £50 payments for the under 80s.
One of the Winter Fuel Payment eligibility criteria is a person’s age in the qualifying week (the third full week in September). This age has been rising in line with the increase to the female State Pension age.