Source · Select Committees · Work and Pensions Committee
Recommendation 9
9
Rejected
Paragraph: 61
Bring forward and publish evaluation of cost of living payments before financial year 2024/25.
Recommendation
The cost of living payments have had an important impact and boosted the finances of low-income households. However, one-off 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. The Government has stated it will conduct an evaluation of the cost of living payments next year. The Government should bring forward its evaluation of the cost of living support payments so that preliminary analysis can be fed into decisions on possible future payments ahead of the next financial year. The evaluation should be published before the start of financial year 2024/25.
Government Response Summary
The government rejects bringing forward the full evaluation of Cost of Living Payments, stating it would compromise robustness, but confirms an evaluation is underway with fieldwork in early 2024 and early findings feeding into policy decisions.
Paragraph Reference:
61
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
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% 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%. From April 2024, subject to Parliamentary approval, most benefit rates will be increased by 6.7% in line with prices growth, and relevant State Pension and Pension Credit rates will be increased by 8.5% 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. The Department has published MI on the number of payments made and the amount spent for each type of Payment as they have been made. More detailed breakdowns on Cost of Living Payments are planned as the subject of an upcoming statistical release. This covers all 2022/23 Cost of Living Payments as well as the first wave of 2023/24 Payments for means-tested 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.