Select committee: Work and Pensions Committee
Conclusion 7
First Report - Cost of Living Support Payments
Published 14 Nov 2023
Paragraph 41
Addressed to Department for Work and Pensions
Work and Pensions Committee Cost of living support payments All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Household Support Fund has enabled the provision of support to vulnerable households who are not eligible for the cost of living support payments or for whom the payments are not sufficient. However, we are concerned by the uneven nature of support offered by the Household Support Fund which can be a postcode lottery dependent on the local authority in which a person lives. A lack of awareness of the fund seems to have resulted in those eligible, and in need, not applying for support. As a result of this we reiterate our concern, raised in our cost of living report in 2022, that a question remains as to whether or not the fund is supporting the most vulnerable households effectively.
From: Work and Pensions Committee, First Report - Cost of Living Support Payments (HC 143), paragraph 41, 14 November 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 25 January 2024 (deadline 14 January 2024).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government's response sets out the case for the one-off, automated Cost of Living Payments and the Household Support Fund, and does not change eligibility rules or payment timing in the ways the Committee recommended.
- On the UC nil-award recommendation, the Department "recognises the frustration" but says substantial changes "would introduce complexity, risking delays to payments or introducing unacceptable levels of fraud or error".
- On bringing forward the evaluation, it says fieldwork is due to begin in early 2024 with full findings "later in the year", that earlier publication would be "detrimental to the robustness of the evaluation", but that "any early relevant findings" will feed into policy decisions.
- On Housing Benefit as a qualifying benefit, it says payments to those receiving only Housing Benefit "could not therefore be delivered in a quick, accurate and straightforward manner", and points to Household Support Fund guidance on prioritising such households.
- On Household Support Fund guidance for people with no recourse to public funds, it says it "would not be appropriate to provide a definitive list of powers" because cases "must be judged on an individual basis".