Not all benefits claimants will receive the new £900 Cost of Living Support payments from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), a government minister has confirmed.
The £301 first instalment of the money – intended to help the vulnerable meet their energy bill commitments and grocery needs with inflation at a 40-year high – is due to go out into recipients’ bank accounts in spring this year, followed by another £300 in the autumn and a further £299 next spring.
More precise dates are expected to be announced later.
People currently receiving Universal Credit, Pension Credit and Tax Credits will be eligible for the three tranches of Cost of Living Support but this will not be true for all benefits recipients, only for those whose payments are means-tested.
That means that recipients of contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) will not be eligible, a benefit that was claimed by more than 1.7 million last year, according to the DWP’s most recent data.
Mims Davies MP, minister for social mobility, youth and progression, was asked to explain the rationale behind the decision in a written query from Labour’s Dame Angela Eagle MP, who wanted to know “for what reason the department has decided that those in receipt of contribution-based Employment Support Allowance and who do not receive Universal Credit are not eligible for Cost of Living Support payments?”
“The Cost of Living payment is being targeted at low income households who are in receipt of a means-tested income replacement benefit,” Ms Davies told Dame Angela.
“Contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance is a non-means-tested benefit.
“Non-means-tested benefits are not qualifying benefits for the Cost of Living payment in their own right because people receiving these benefits may have other financial resources available to them.”
Including the £900, a total of £1,350 in additional state support will be made available to help the public cope with the present economic crisis over the course of the financial year, with £300 going out to eight million pensioners to boost their Winter Fuel Payment and another £150 reaching six million disabled people to help with their domestic costs.
