Thousands of pensioners denied Winter Fuel Payment will get £100 by end of March

An older man with white hair and a beard doing financial planning at his home
-Credit:Getty


Thousands of pensioners denied the Winter Fuel Payment will receive a government payment of £100 by the end of March, it's been confirmed. Older people in England and Wales are now only eligible for the allowance if they are on Pension Credit or some other means-tested benefits, with Scotland and Norther Ireland also forced to follow suit and impose similar restrictions because their funding allocation had been trimmed.

Stormont's Communities Minister Gordon Lyons said he strongly disagreed with the rule changes by the Labour Government but there was "no additional resource" to enable Northern Ireland to stick to the previous annual payouts.

Mr Lyons announced that a new one-off fuel payment of £100 would be paid to pensioners who were impacted by the cuts. It's estimated that around 249,000 pensioners in Northern Ireland have been excluded from the Winter Fuel Payment and would be in line for this support.

ADVERTISEMENT

READ MORE:

It was originally announced in November that people would receive this sum by March but the minister has issued a new update. He said: "Whilst the payment has not yet issued, my officials are working at pace to put in place the arrangements for making this payment via existing payment channels before the end of March 2025."

One MP criticised the delay as "utter madness", BelfastLive reported. Mark H Durkan, a Social Democratic and Labour Party politician who is in the Northern Ireland Assembly, said: "It's shameful that not one penny of support has been paid to pensioner households missing out on the Winter Fuel Payment this year.

"Before Christmas, people were told the £100 payment for pensioners missing out on the fuel payment would be rolled out and paid 'by March.' Now the Minister tells me they aim to get the money out 'by the end of March.'

ADVERTISEMENT

"This much-anticipated payment won't be made until spring and I’m afraid that will come too late for so many. The Minister said he recognised the need to get this money paid out as quickly as possible but that contradicts the response I received to my Assembly Question."

He added: "The Communities Minister and his Executive colleagues have neglected to meet the needs of the most vulnerable or make meaningful strides to tackle fuel poverty. This is about more than a single payment, we need to see long-term support for pensioners and low-income households forced to choose between eating or heating.

"Those affected have been left out in the cold this winter and pushed deeper into poverty. They could possibly be left out in the cold this spring as well, given the repeated failure of this Executive to understand the need for urgency on such issues. It's simply not good enough."

A spokesperson for the Department for Communities, which is Northern Ireland's devolved equivalent of the DWP, said: "Minister Lyons announced on November 19, 2024, that a one-off payment of £100 would be provided to pensioner households in Northern Ireland no longer eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment. The department is working at pace to put the necessary arrangements in place for making this payment before the end of March 2025."