Winter Fuel Payment: Means-tested Benefits
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of using of AI to support its processes for means testing for the winter fuel payment.
Answered by Torsten Bell
The Government wants to ensure a wider range of pensioners in England and Wales receive Winter Fuel Payment in future, while recognising public finance constraints and the fact that making payments to the highest income pensioners is hard to justify.
From winter 2025-26, the majority of pensioners in England and Wales – around 9 million individuals - will benefit from Winter Fuel Payments and so ensure it is better targeted than the previous near-universal payment.
Winter Fuel Payments are £200 for a household with someone of State Pension age and £300 for a household with someone aged 80 or over. They will be paid automatically to anyone who has not opted out. Individuals with a taxable income above £35,000 a year will have any WFP recouped via HMRC. These changes save £450m a year up to 2030/31, compared to paying Winter Fuel Payments universally in England and Wales.
The existing Digital Winter Fuel service utilises clear policy rules that are already automated within the service to determine eligibility. The Department considers where Artificial Intelligence would be of benefit for specific use cases and in this instance is not applicable.
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