DWP stops fuel deductions from benefits

The Department for Work and Pensions stopped taking deductions from benefits for ongoing consumption of fuel on 26 April 2022, according to the benefits changes timetable published by Turn2us¹. An exception can be made if the claimant requests it¹.

The change sits among a series of benefit changes listed for April 2022. Annual uprating to benefits took place at the beginning of the financial year, and England, Scotland and Wales each made £150 cost of living payments through the council tax system, with different schemes in each country¹. The definition of terminal illness for Employment and Support Allowance and Universal Credit in England, Wales and Scotland was changed from a reasonable expectation that the patient might die within six months to 12 months; the DWP planned to change the definition for other disability benefits too, but not in April 2022¹. In Northern Ireland the definition changed from 6 to 12 months for all benefits, and for Scotland's Adult and Child Disability Payment terminal illness has no timeframe¹.

Also in April 2022, assorted changes were made to enable Ukrainian refugees to claim benefits in the UK and to exempt them from waiting periods, and further changes were made so that the benefits and council tax of people hosting refugees under the Homes for Ukraine scheme are not affected¹. From 19 April 2022, children in families with No Recourse to Public Funds can be entitled to free school meals if their parents' income is low, with councils handling enquiries¹.

The timetable lists the fuel deduction change as a single line, without stating how many claimants were affected or the value of deductions stopped. Those figures have not been reported¹.

Date	Change
5 February 2022	Period in which new Universal Credit and Jobseeker's Allowance claimants can restrict their job search to fields in which they had previous experience reduced from 13 weeks to 4 weeks¹
15 February 2022	People with a terminal illness exempt from the requirement to accept a claimant commitment for Universal Credit¹
21 March 2022	Adult Disability Payment introduced in Scotland for new claimants in Perth and Kinross, City of Dundee and the Western Isles¹
31 March 2022	English councils' Household Support Fund schemes closed¹
26 April 2022	DWP stopped taking deductions from benefits for ongoing consumption of fuel, with an exception on request¹

Why it matters for households

Deductions from benefits are taken at source, so a household receiving Universal Credit or another benefit sees the money before any deduction is applied. From 26 April 2022, the DWP stopped taking deductions for ongoing fuel consumption, which means the amount paid to affected claimants is no longer reduced for that purpose¹. The exception is where the claimant asks for a deduction to continue¹.

The change applies to deductions for ongoing fuel use, not to other kinds of deduction, and the timetable does not set out which benefits or which suppliers were covered¹. Households with fuel debts built up before that date are not described in the timetable, and it does not say whether arrears already being recovered through deductions were treated differently from ongoing consumption¹. The general rules on deductions from benefits, including how they are requested and varied, are set out in the site's guide to benefit overpayments and deductions from benefits.

What happens next

Managed migration, the process of moving people off legacy benefits and onto Universal Credit, restarted from 9 May 2022, initially piloted in Medway and Bolton¹. The timetable also lists the introduction of Adult Disability Payment in Scotland for new claimants in Angus, North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire on 20 June 2022, and in Fife, City of Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Moray, North Ayrshire, East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire on 25 July 2022, with applications opening across all of Scotland on 29 August¹. Wider changes to benefits and to debt are covered in the site's guides.

Sources1 cited