Independent Age recently delivered an overdue invoice for over £1.1 billion to the UK Government, to highlight the massive amount of Pension Credit that is still going unclaimed by hundreds of thousands of pensioners across the country. The charity has calculated that the amount of money that has been set aside for older people on a low income is large enough to pay the annual average energy bills for 454,000 UK households.
The invoice was handed in alongside an open letter to Work and Pension Secretary Mel Stride MP on April 27. In the letter, which contains 3,500 signatures of support, the charity calls on the UK Government to help older people struggling to make ends meet by publishing and delivering a Pension Credit uptake strategy.
Independent Age said this needs to outline a sustained and strategic approach to reducing the amount of eligible older people missing out on the means-tested benefit.
