PRESSURE has been increased to resolve unfairness in the award of cold weather payments to people living in West Devon and Torridge by local MP Geoffrey Cox.
Mr Cox, who raised the issue in a select committee hearing into fuel poverty, recently used Parliamentary Questions to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to probe why hundreds of people in the area, suffering sub-zero temperatures, were denied the payment.
The cold weather payment is automatically given to those receiving pension credits, while those on income support or jobseekers' allowance may also be eligible.
The payments are triggered when the average temperature drops below zero for several days in a row — but because the system relies on temperature readings at a handful of Met Office weather stations spread across the country, people in remote areas in West Devon and Torridge often lose out.
Mr Cox cited the example that temperatures in Plymouth were typically 3 to 5 degrees centigrade higher than on Dartmoor, where many people in need would benefit from the payments, and he urged them to review the method by which entitlement was decided.
The Minister replied that the method for assessing payments is reviewed every year, but that she would look into what Mr Cox had said. She invited Mr Cox to make written representations to the Department of Work and Pensions on the issue.
Mr Cox said: 'On a day when the Department of Work and Pensions gave its staff the afternoon off to enjoy the snow, it is more important then ever to make sure that people who find cold weather a source of anxiety rather than fun receive the help that they desperately need.
'I am convinced that more allowance should be made for local variations in climate when the Cold Weather Payment is triggered, particularly in rural areas like our own. I would be delighted to take the Minister up on her offer to write to her, and will be contacting her shortly.'