§ Mr. WilsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the criteria under which pensioners qualify for a severe weather payment; and how many such payments were made in each of the past five years.
§ Mr. ScottA payment of £5 is available from the social fund for any period of seven consecutive days when the average temperature is 0 deg or below. Pensioners who receive income support are eligible to claim, and savings over £1,000 are taken into account on a pound-for-pound basis.
Information on the number of payments made to pensioners over the past five years is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
§ Mr. WilsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the places at which temperatures are measured in order to determine whether cold weather payments should be made available; and if he will state in each case the area relating to these trigger points for this purpose.
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§ Mr. ScottI refer the hon. Member to the schedule to the Social Fund Cold Weather Payments General (Amendment) Regulations 1990 (SI 2302/1990), which were laid before the House on 21 November and came into force on 12 December. These regulations list all the national climatological message weather stations which act as trigger points, and state which areas are linked to each message station.