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PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Pension Credit - 7 October 2024 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

Debate Detail

Contributions from Emma Reynolds, are highlighted with a yellow border.
Con
Blake Stephenson
Mid Bedfordshire
6. What steps she is taking to ensure pensioners who are eligible for but have not previously claimed pension credit receive a winter fuel payment in winter 2024-25.
Lab
Paul Davies
Colne Valley
8. What steps her Department is taking to help increase uptake of pension credit.
Emma Reynolds
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
We have been running a national campaign since September across a range of channels, including print and broadcast media, to encourage pensioners to check their eligibility and make a claim, and we will continue to work with external partners, local authorities and devolved Governments to boost the take-up of pension credit.
  14:54:50
Blake Stephenson
Around 93% of pensioners in Mid Bedfordshire face losing the winter fuel payment this year; some of them earn less than £1,000 a month. What further support will the Minister give them to fill Labour’s black hole in their household finances so that they can keep warm this winter?
  14:55:04
Emma Reynolds
The winter fuel payment was once described as the

“largest benefit paid to pensioners…regardless of need, giving money to wealthier pensioners when working people on lower incomes do not get similar support.”

Those are not my words, but the words of the Tories’ 2017 manifesto.
Paul Davies
Claiming pension credit can provide pensioners with additional help for housing costs, council tax and heating bills. We all have a duty to boost pension credit uptake to ensure that low-income pensioners in all our constituencies receive the necessary support. I welcomed the Deputy Prime Minister and the Work and Pensions Secretary collaborating with local authorities and charities for the annual pension credit week of action, which took place during recess. What more can be done to ensure that low-income pensioners receive pension credit?
Emma Reynolds
We were pleased to see 160 local authorities respond positively to our call for action. They are working with us to drive the boost in uptake of pension credit. Apart from the national campaign that we have been running, we will bring together the administration of housing benefit and pension credit in a way that the former Government failed to do.

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