The pension credit deadline has passed – and the government must help find millions missing out on money they’re entitled to

At the stroke of midnight on Saturday night, the shutters came down. Anyone who didn’t claim pension credit by then will have lost their winter fuel payment. Pension credit is designed to help low-income pensioners with living costs, and only those on this means-tested benefit qualify for winter fuel payments. Yet up to 880,000 older people entitled to pension credit don’t claim it. They’re only some of millions of people who aren’t getting their benefits. Last year, a total of £23bn in benefits and social support went unclaimed.

There are far fewer pensioners living in poverty today than there were when the winter fuel allowance was introduced back in 1997, so means testing it by linking it to pension credit makes sense. Thanks to the pension triple lock, most pensioners will be better off by up to £472 a year from April 2025. Why give a winter fuel payment to Bernie Ecclestone, Rod Stewart, or to me? Until now, kind-hearted better-off pensioners donated their allowance to charity. Less kind people mocked the welfare state’s apparent extravagance. Fraser Nelson, former editor of the Spectator, described: “A millionaire I know [who] has a tradition every year: he buys a bottle of vintage wine with his winter fuel payment and invites friends to drink it. His point is that it’s ludicrous that people like him are given handouts by the government.”

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist