Select committee: Work and Pensions Committee
Conclusion 12
2nd Report - Pensioner Poverty: challenges and mitigations
Published 24 Jul 2025
Addressed to Department for Work and Pensions
Work and Pensions Committee Pensioner Poverty: challenges and mitigations All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Our predecessor Committee is amongst those that have criticised Winter Fuel Payments for being poorly targeted and a ‘blunt instrument’ for tackling fuel poverty. As a universal payment, WFP went to pensioners who did not need it, and its real terms value has dwindled over two decades since it was introduced. However, we heard very clearly that pensioners valued it, had come to rely on it and that it gave them “confidence to turn the heating on.” The change in eligibility was announced in July, giving limited time for older people and organisations working with them to prepare for the coming winter, and followed years of high energy prices. Whatever the merits of the change, it created uncertainty and anxiety for pensioners about how they would manage. (Conclusion, Paragraph 87)
From: Work and Pensions Committee, 2nd Report - Pensioner Poverty: challenges and mitigations (HC 465), 24 July 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 10 November 2025 (deadline 24 September 2025).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response commits to monitoring the gender pensions gap and to data-sharing reports to the Committee, but declines to monitor local authorities on benefit take-up or to change mixed-age couple conditionality.
- On the gender pensions gap, the government is "committed to monitoring" it and will "continue to seek to monitor and publish every 2 years", as the underlying survey data allow.
- On an Older People's Commissioner for England, the government says it "will consider" the experience and effectiveness of the Commissioner in Wales to inform its "future thinking in England".
- The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero "will write to the Committee by the end of 2025" with an assessment of the legislative changes needed to enable data sharing for bill support.
- On a Pension Credit taper, the government argues a taper "would introduce far greater complexity into the benefit". On mixed-age couples, it states there "are no plans to change or explore" the current requirement.