# SI 2024/869 in force: Winter Fuel Payment means-tested in England and Wales Date: 2024 ## The fact On 16 September 2024 the Social Fund Winter Fuel Payment Regulations 2024 (SI 2024/869) came into force, restricting Winter Fuel Payments in England and Wales to households on Pension Credit or specified means-tested benefits. [Rachel Reeves](/people/rachel-reeves) had announced the policy to Parliament on 29 July 2024. The SI was laid on 22 August 2024. BBC recorded “around 10 million” pensioners losing the payment; that figure is the wire’s and is not stored as a unique integer. ## Context She was chancellor. DWP laid the SI. A later 9 June 2025 threshold change is neighbouring. 29 July announcement; 22 August laying; 16 September in force. Stored as one 16 September 2024 Fact. Keep SI 2024/869 in force: Winter Fuel Payment means-tested in England and Wales on 2024-09-16 separate from neighbouring 5 July 2024 appointment, 29 July Winter Fuel announcement, 10 September Budget Responsibility Act, 16 September SI 2024/869, and 30 October 2024 Autumn Budget. The Chancellor of the Exchequer can present a Budget, take a bill through the Commons, and announce a transfer change to Parliament. She does not sit as DWP’s laying officer on every SI, as the OBR, or as the previous chancellor. A 29 July announcement is not authorship of every later HMRC recovery. Sharing a cabinet with Keir Starmer is not a reason to drop SI 2024/869. ## Evidence and sources legislation.gov.uk carries the official instrument or communique. BBC News records the same dated act independently. ## Significance The path is the owned fiscal-rules driver: a completed means-test of a previously near-universal winter payment. ## What is established and what is not Established: SI 2024/869 came into force on 16 September 2024 after her 29 July announcement. Not established: A unique 10-million integer as size, or that the 2025 threshold change is this same instrument. What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions. The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit. Sharing laying with DWP is not a reason to drop 16 September 2024.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies SI 2024/869 in force: Winter Fuel Payment means-tested in England and Wales, not a later speech about SI 2024/869 in force: Winter Fuel Payment means-tested in England and Wales. Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. SI 2024/869 in force: Winter Fuel Payment means-tested in England and Wales on 2024-09-16 is not a licence to treat every later legislation.gov.uk communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor instrument exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average SI 2024/869 in force: Winter Fuel Payment means-tested in England and Wales into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to She announced the policy as chancellor. Sharing laying with DWP is not a reason to drop 16 September 2024. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series. ## People - Rachel Reeves: https://factrail.ai/people/rachel-reeves ## Drivers - Reeves fiscal rules: https://factrail.ai/drivers/reeves-fiscal-rules ## Sources - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx02zdd92zdo - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2024/869 ## Methodology https://factrail.ai/methodology Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/uk-reeves-winter-fuel-si-2024