The Minister for Social Mobility, Youth and Progression, Mims Davies, answered that since April 2022, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has conducted a “substantial” campaign “to raise awareness and increase take-up.”
This statement came during Women and Equalities questions in the House of Commons, when Anne McLaughlin (SNP, Glasgow North East) asked what the Government is doing to promote the uptake of Pension Credit amongst older people.
Mims Davies added that “There are strong indications that this campaign is working,” as “Applications for Pension Credit were around 75% higher in the year to May 2023 than in the same period the year before.”
Ms McLaughlin stated her credentials as a campaigner on Pension Credit, noting that she established the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pension Credit and how she and her team “have sat with hundreds of older constituents and helped them to apply for Pension Credit, which is after all their right.” She then called on the Minister for Social Mobility, Youth and Progression to also champion Pension Credit.
The Minister for Social Mobility, Youth and Progression thanked Ms McLaughlin for her work and commented that many MPs use the Help to Claim service or the GOV.UK benefits calculator to assist constituents. Continuing, she noted that the Minister for Pensions, Laura Trott, announced in June 2023 a trial of the Invitation to Claim scheme, “which will be held in 10 local authorities across Great Britain this summer.” The scheme will see the DWP send letters to “2,600 pensioner households identified by housing benefit data and most likely to be entitled to Pension Credit.”
Bob Blackman (Con, Harrow East) observed that “there is a reluctance among people who are entitled to [Pension Credit] benefit to actually claim it,” and asked what action is being taken to “break down that taboo, so that people who are fully entitled to this money and desperately need it actually claim it.”
The Minister for Social Mobility, Youth and Progression replied that “We need to help them to be encouraged that they are absolutely entitled to the benefit. I reassure him that the DWP received around 21,000 claims in the two weeks in the run-up to 19 May, which was 171% up compared with the corresponding weeks in 2022, so the actions we are all taking are working.”