HM Treasury 5
                                              25 November 1997
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           EXTRA HELP TOWARDS PENSIONER HEATING COSTS
                                
Pensioners are set to receive extra help this year and next with
winter fuel bills, announced Chancellor Gordon Brown in his Pre-
Budget report today.

All pensioner households will receive a payment of 20 Pounds
while pensioner households receiving Income Support will receive
a 50 Pounds payment to help with winter fuel bills. The payments
will be made as soon as possible and will cost 190 million Pounds
a year, for the next two years.

The Chancellor also announced a series of pilot projects to
identify the best way of providing more automatic help to
pensioners not receiving their Income Support entitlement.

The Chancellor said:

     "By next year, every pensioner household will see the
benefits of lower VAT on fuel, the abolition of the gas levy, and
now the Government's new payment to help with winter fuel bills.
The average pensioner's fuel bill will be nearly 100 Pounds a
year lower as a result; poorer pensioner households on Income
Support will gain nearly 130 Pounds a year."

In addition, a number of pilot projects will start next year to
identify the best ways of providing more automatic help to the
estimated one million pensioners not currently receiving the
Income Support to which they are entitled. The Government will
then consider how best to deliver more automatic help on a
national basis.





NOTES FOR EDITORS

1.    Average pensioner  fuel bills are 612 Pounds a year, or
11.80 Pounds per week.  The average pensioner household spends
6.7 per cent of their income on fuel, compared with 4.5 per cent
for average households.  

2.   There are 11 million pensioners, living in 7 million
households. 1.7 million of these pensioner households receive
Income Support. So 1.7 million households will receive an extra
50 Pounds and the other 5.3 million will receive 20 Pounds.


 
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