Warm Home Discount 2025, Government reminder

Making sure I understood correctly, it’s for those who receive benefits and live in a certain type of building? 

No - That was the case last winter, 2024, when the size and age of the building you lived in could count.
(Many who had previously qualified for WHD every year did not qualify last year because of that building size/age rule).

For this year, winter 2025/2026, that property size/age rule has been scrapped.

To be eligible for the WHD for 2025/2026 then on the relevant date you just need to be receiving an Income Ielated benefit -  any one of Housing Benefit, Income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support, Pension Credit or Universal Credit.

You also need to be named on your electricity bill as the bill payer* which is what the Government is asking that people check now.

Or to put it another way:
If the person named on the electricity bil* is getting one of those Income Related benefits, then they qualify for a £150 credit on their electricity bill this winer.

*There is one other very small qualification
If your electricity supplier is one of the smaller ones with less than 1000 customers then they don’t have to take part in the WHD scheme.

Again :-

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE 2025/2026 scheme HAS NOT GONE ‘LIVE’ YET.

All the government are asking that you do at this time is to ensure that if your household is receiving an IR benefit then the person who is receiving the benefit is named as the electricity bill payer.

Warm Home Discount
 

If you live in Scotland & are not in the core group, register your interest for the scheme 2025-2026
 

The Warm Home Discount is a one-off £150 discount given to eligible domestic electricity customers to help with their energy costs.

If you live in England or Wales, you don't need to apply for the Warm Home Discount, if you are eligible, you will be contacted by the UK Government between October and January. Customers who live in Scotland, that don't qualify for the Core Group, can apply for the Warm Home Discount.

Click here to register your interest. 

Thanks ​@Emmanuelle_OVO I have shared that registration form link on the MSE ‘Benefits’ forum.

Brilliant thanks so much ​@Nukecad & thank you for your helpful post 🤗

So if we are in England we dont need to apply for it through ovo? Do we have to wait for the letter and it be done automatically? I don't want to miss out like last year 😅

Hey ​@Leni,

We have been advised that, if you are eligible for the discount, the government should contact you between October and January. We will keep you updated with any new information on the Forum, so please watch for announcements as we stay informed over the winter.

Thanks ​@Nukecad for the info!

I’ve pinned your response on the thread so that everyone can stay in the loop with the latest and most accurate information!

The Government advice online has now been updated for the 2025/2026 Warm Home Discount Scheme.

https://www.gov.uk/the-warm-home-discount-scheme

It’s earlier than I expected but:

My Warm Home Discount for 2025/26 has been credited to my account this morning:

Thanks for the heads up ​@Nukecad! 

Last year, I got my letter from the Warm Home Discount Scheme about this time of year. I was a bit perturbed to be required to call them to ‘check if I qualify’, even though I’d not had to do that in the previous seven years. I was told they have to check every so often just to make sure I was still alive, for example. There is apparently a difference between being eligible for and qualifying for the WHD. I’ve no idea what it is, though.

I was surprised to get a very similar (possibly identical, apart from the dates) letter today, so I gritted my teeth and called (it’s a freephone number: 0800 030 9324). I was subjected to a similar interrogation to last year’s, and at one stage I think we noticed a possible reason for the hiccup. Since schooldays, I’ve been known by my second Christian name, not the first. This meant that there was a discrepancy between their (the WHD scheme’s) record of me (first name, surname) and OVO’s (second name, surname), so I had to convince the young lady that I was one and the same.  Of course, DWP have my full name, but at 26 characters including spaces, it’s a bit too long for many computer systems. So they truncated it to just first name last name and generated a problem for all of us.

tl;dr

For the WHD process to work seamlessly, it seems that the name on the electricity account must match the first name/last name pair registered with gov.uk.   

OTPS: This sort of problem doesn’t occur in countries where everyone has a unique personal identification number, like the one I hope we will all be given when we get our digital ID in the next few years. It really makes life so much simpler. 

PPS: The WHD letter came in a plain white envelope from Belfast, which appears to be the font of most of my communications from the DWP, although it didn’t say anywhere that that was the department it came from - just HM Government. By the same post, I had notification of the imminent arrival in my bank account of my Winter Fuel Payment. This letter came in a manila envelope (the sort that used to have OHMS on the front instead of a stamp, but now is just marked HM Government ) from a DWP office in Warrington.

Just think how much effort could be saved by joining things up a bit, e.g. by linking everyone through a central register. 

We already each have a unuque identifying number in the UK, for adults over 16, it called your National Insurance number and is used by the government and councils to identify individuals.

Whilst it is possible for a UK adult not to have a NI number it’s rare not to, you need one to earn wages or claim benefits, and pay state pension contributions,  income tax, council tax. etc.

However the government say that your NI number “does not  constitute proof of British citizenship, but only that at some point the person attached to it is legally allowed to work in the UK”.
A touch pedantic perhaps?

The DWP change to plain white envelopes in 2021 is/was  for an interesting reason.

It happened because the automatic mail sorting machines at the post office cannot reliably read the newer ‘orange’ coloured sorting codes when they are printed on a manila background.
Take a look at an orange code printed on a “HM Government” manila envelope to see the potential problem.

You can be a resident, but not necessarily a citizen.

I have had personal identification numbers in a number of European countries, but I have always been a British Citizen. I don’t think this is a requirement of the WHD scheme or any of the qualifying elements for it. Having an ID number would just help avoid many of the hurdles being faced by those who are eligible but appear not to qualify.

My reply was to the Nucead’s “a touch of pedantic perhaps?” The statement is true - NI number does not constitute proof of British citizenship. Because not only British citizens have NI number in the UK.

That is true - but so what?

Nobody is saying that you have to be a British Citizen to have a UK ID card.

As Firedog rightly points out, you don’t need to have citizenship of a country to have an ID card for use in that country.

It’s an ID card, it is not a ‘proof of citizenship’ card.

We’re talking about two different - but related - things here. One is a personal identification number, like an NI number or NHS number with wider application. The other is a digital ID, using the same PIN but with more details. This could well constitute proof of citizenship for those who are citizens, as well as showing immigration status for those who aren’t. The PIN would just combine NI and NHS identifiers and probably more, It would replace all that nonsense with utility bills and bank statements just to get a library card or a bus pass. One or both are in use in other countries, saving residents all sorts of hassle.
  

[OT1: I tried getting my Digital ID last week - the first pilot is for armed forces veterans like me. It was incredibly convoluted, failing at what was probably the last hurdle: matching my face to existing photo ID like driving licence and passport. So much for facial recognition! I might try again in daylight.]

[OT2: when I first moved back to England twenty years ago, I was asked by somebody - at the chemist’s, perhaps - for my NHS number. TKWD 263, i responded (the number remembered from childhood, along with 23628 - my mother’s Co-op share number - and RB 3814, the number of the car my father built in 1950). No good, it seemed - the system had changed sometime in the previous half-century, and there was no way of finding the new one from the old one.] 

I didn’t say any of these. I just pointed that the statement about the NI number and British citizenship is correct. It seems I missed your point.

Regarding the UK ID card, as a person who always needs to confirm his status using eVisa, I don’t understand all these talks… Especially, when the government proposes it as “it will”… It is. It already exist at least last five years. Just, at the moment, it applies to any UK resident who is not UK citizen. And doesn’t have a form of the smartphone app yet.

Five years ago when I needed to do it for my EU Settlement status, the app on my iPhone was a nightmare exactly at that point. Then I used my friend’s Samsung at that time and I was able to finish the process. Maybe you are having the same issue.

I suppose it’s possible that some code from Brexit-era days has found its way into the shiny new Digital BritCard ID pass sign-up system, but I was in fact using a reasonably modern Samsung and a Windows PC at the time. I was rather hoping to be one of the first, but that ship has sailed, sadly.