With daily costs still high, charities, campaigners, and MPs are calling for another round of financial help
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is looking into its £900 cost of living payments, which could mean more money for those on Universal Credit, PIP and other benefits, according to BirminghamLive. With daily costs still high, charities, campaigners, and MPs are calling for another round of financial help, but the government has said that no more payments will be made after the recent £299 amount.
Last year, the DWP gave £900 to households on benefits like Universal Credit, £150 to those getting disability benefits, and up to £300 extra to pensioners on top of their Winter Fuel Payment.
The last part of the £900 package, a £299 payment, finished on February 22. If people think they should have got this money but didn’t, they can now report a missing payment. It’s thought that as many as 77,000 people might still be waiting for this cash.
This year’s full payment schedule includes £301 paid between April 25 and May 17 to households on Universal Credit, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), Income Support and Pension Credit. This was followed by £300 to the same group between October 31 and November 19, and then £299 between February 6 and 22. The same amounts were given to those on Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit between May 2 and May 9, November 10 and November 19, and February 16 and February 22.
Those receiving disability benefits such as Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Disability Living Allowance, Adult Disability Payment, Child Disability Payment and Attendance Allowance got £150 between June 20 and July 24. Alongside this, the annual Winter Fuel Payment was boosted by a pensioner cost of living payment between £150 or £300, depending on age and circumstances.
The Work and Pensions Committee, however, says these cost of living payments “were not a sufficient response to the scale of the issue and many people in receipt of the payments still could not meet essential costs or only had a temporary reprieve.” Detractors of the £150 given to those on disability perks argued it only amounted to £2.88 each week over an entire year.
The committee asked for a comprehensive report on how effective the cost of living help was, and wanted it before April. This would help with any decisions on more payments in the next fiscal year.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has replied to concerns and suggestions from MPs on the Work and Pensions Committee, saying they are looking into how well cost of living support is working.
The DWP shared: “One-off payments were only a part of the government’s total support package, which totals £104 billion over 2022/23 to 2024/25. State pension and benefit rates were increased by 10.1 per cent in April 2023 in line with prices growth, and with the triple lock commitment to increase the new and basic State Pensions in line with the highest of earnings growth, prices growth or 2.5 per cent.”
“From April 2024, subject to parliamentary approval, most benefit rates will be increased by 6.7 per cent in line with prices growth, and relevant State Pension and Pension Credit rates will be increased by 8.5 per cent in line with earnings growth. Impact assessments were conducted for both the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 cost of living payments for means-tested and disability benefit recipients.”
“An evaluation of the cost of living payments is underway. This will seek to understand their effectiveness as a means of support for low-income and vulnerable households. Fieldwork is due to commence in early 2024 with full findings available later in the year. Accelerating the evaluation to be published ahead of 2024/25 would be detrimental to the robustness of the evaluation, but any early relevant findings from the fieldwork will feed into policy-making decisions.”
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