Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential health benefits of increasing the temperature below which cold weather payments are made.

The Government already has a plan to protect health and reduce harm from cold weather. In October 2015 it published The Cold Weather Plan for England which can be viewed at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cold-weather-plan-cwp-for-england . We have no plans to change the criteria for Cold Weather Payments.