Citizens Advice responds to the government's announcement on Winter Fuel Payment

Responding to the announcement Tom MacInnes, Director of Policy at Citizens Advice, said:

“It’s good news that the government is returning winter fuel payments to low-income pensioners, without needing to access Pension Credit first. This will provide straight-forward, vital support to nine million pensioners this winter.

“We've made the point repeatedly that additional support should be targeted at those who are struggling most with energy costs, like households with children - particularly single parent families - and disabled people. These groups will continue to face significant financial stress unless further action is taken. 

“We hope the government will now take stock of its other proposals and rethink the huge cuts to disability benefits which will cause significant hardship for disabled people and have severe consequences for their children. We also strongly urge ministers to go further and lift more children out of poverty by scrapping the two-child limit and benefit cap.”

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Notes to editors:

  1. Citizens Advice is made up of the national charity Citizens Advice; the network of independent local Citizens Advice charities across England and Wales; the Citizens Advice consumer service; and the Witness Service.

  2. Our network of charities offers impartial advice online, over the phone, and in person, for free. 

  3. Citizens Advice helped 2.68 million people face to face, over the phone, by email and webchat in 2023-24. And we had 51.7 million visits to our website. For full service statistics see our monthly publication Advice trends.

  4. Citizens Advice service staff are supported by more than 19,000 trained volunteers, working at over 1,900 service outlets across England and Wales.

  5. Citizens Advice is the statutory consumer advocate for energy and postal markets. We provide supplier performance information to consumers and policy analysis to decision makers. 

  6. You can get consumer advice from the Citizens Advice consumer service on 0808 223 1133 or 0808 223 1144 for Welsh language speakers.