Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Trefnydd and Chief Whip – in the Senedd at 2:35 pm on 18 September 2024.

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Photo of Jane Hutt Jane Hutt Labour 2:35, 18 September 2024

An important follow-up question indeed. I was very pleased to receive a letter from the Right Honourable Liz Kendall MP—she's the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions—only this week, in response to my correspondence, my letter, to her earlier in the summer, to ask the questions about how can we address this in terms of meeting the needs, particularly, of our poorest pensioners in Wales, who are not claiming pension credit. And many of you will be aware that our former Older People's Commissioner, Heléna Herklots, took this as a very strong pension credit campaign. We were involved as a Welsh Government in that. So, we are engaging very closely with the UK Government campaign. We've shared with stakeholders across Wales the pension credit social media messages, we've got our Welsh Government 'Claim what's yours' campaign, encouraging people to contact Advicelink Cymru for help to claim with pension credit. We're putting posters in our doctors' surgeries. It's across the whole of Welsh Government that we're looking to help get this message across.

But I do think also that this is about prevention, about how we support our pensioner households in Wales. And the investment of £30 million this year into our Warm Homes Nest scheme to tackle fuel poverty for homeowners and households renting with private landlords is crucially important. Now, can I just say one other point? Not enough pensioners are taking up our discretionary assistance fund to provide emergency support for households. So, I do urge you to take up, with your constituents, and particularly pensioners, and give them the information, particularly via our 'Claim what's yours' campaign, of discretionary assistance payments, which is something that we in Wales have of course supported and made a priority in our budget.