To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security whether he will conduct a review of criteria used to allocate cold weather payments to consider additional factors including storm conditions and wind chill.

In consultation with the Meteorological Office, we have recently reviewed the working of the cold weather payments scheme and are satisfied that the most important factor in measuring cold weather is air temperature. It would be extremely difficult to incorporate additional factors such as storm conditions and wind chill into a scheme which is intended to be simple to operate and easy to understand.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security whether he will revise the requirements that temperatures remain below freezing for seven consecutive days in order to qualify for a cold weather payment.

No. The scheme gives extra help towards higher heating costs resulting from a sustained period of cold weather. A period of seven consecutive days where the average daily temperature is 0 deg. C (freezing point) or below is a reasonable indication of this.