Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people over state pension age have been (a) assessed as spending more than 10% of their income on fuel (b) assessed as being eligible for pension credit and (c) receiving pension credit for the financial year 2023-24.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero published the latest Fuel Poverty Statistics for England in February 2023 on gov.uk here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fuel-poverty-statistics#2023-statistics

Table 22 of this publication provides statistics on the number of fuel poor households by age of youngest person in household in 2023 using the Low Income Low Energy Efficiency (LILEE) fuel poverty metric. Available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fuel-poverty-detailed-tables-2024-2023-data

Statistics on the number of households that spend more than 10% of their income on fuel costs can be found in Annex D of Fuel Poverty Annual report, covering all households. The figures in this annex are not broken down by age groups.

In 2021/22 (the latest year for which statistics are available) 2.15million people were estimated to be eligible for Pension Credit. Based on the most recent data (November 2023) 1.4million households in Great Britain currently receive Pension Credit.