A total of 11.6 million were paid the cash boost to help pay their energy bills for the winter months of 2023 and early 2024.
This marks a rise of half a million who received the payment in the space of five years.
The financial support from the Government went to eight-and-a-half million households – over 140,000 more than during the same period 12 months before.
Meanwhile, 3.3 million recipients were aged 80 and over, with 2.8 million aged between 75 and 79 years old. The number of those aged between 75 and 79 has increased by 400,000 since winter 2021-22.
Winter Fuel Payments have been in place universally to pensioners since 1997 if they were born on or after the date that qualifies them as being the state pension age, which as it stands is 25 September 1958.
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If you qualified for the state pension, you’d receive £200 in October or November, while those aged over 80 would receive a £300 allowance.
200,000 could fall into poverty
However, in July, the Government announced plans to axe the automatic nature of the payment and make it means-tested. This could potentially plunge 200,000 households who are already struggling financially into poverty, according to research from Age UK.
The new eligibility requires those who qualify for state pension also to receive either Pension Credit, Universal Credit, Income Support, income-related Employment or Support Allowance or Jobseeker’s Allowance.
Following the controversial decision, which Chancellor Rachel Reeves said was to fix a “£22bn black hole” inherited from the previous Conservative Government, around 9,000 pensioners per week contacted the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to claim for Pension Credit.
The Government has urged more pensioners to check their eligibility for Pension Credit, which requires you to be earning:
- Less than £218.15 per week if you’re a single person
- Under £332.95 per week if you’re in a couple
Yesterday (23 September), a non-binding vote on the policy among Labour Party members was set to go ahead during the Labour Party Conference. It was put forward in a motion by trade union Unite, but the vote is now expected to go ahead on Wednesday.
‘Right to restrict payment to poorest pensioners’
In an interview, Rachel Reeves told LBC: “This isn’t the decision that I wanted to make. It wasn’t a decision that I expected to make, but given the state of the public finances that I inherited, I think it was right to restrict the Winter Fuel Payment to the poorest pensioners and to make sure that all of the pensioners are entitled to it are getting it.”
Many campaigners, trade unions and charities have urged for the Government to make a U-turn on the policy, and a petition to halt its progress by Age UK has reached over half a million signatures.
MP Steve Darling, the Liberal Democrats’ work and pensions spokesperson, said: “Cutting these payments for pensioners, which include millions who are just scraping by and are now worried about how they will get through the winter, is totally wrong.
“It is not too late for this new Government to change course and Liberal Democrat MPs will push them every step of the way to reverse these cuts and protect vulnerable pensioners this winter.”
