Family & Health

Cold weather payments worth £25 have once again been triggered for residents in dozens of postcode areas across England and Wales, amid freezing conditions. For some, this will be the third £25 payment this winter – meaning those eligible will get £75 in total. The payments are designed to help households pay for energy bills when temperatures plummet.

If you live in Scotland and claim certain means-tested benefits, and you have children under 16, you can now claim £25 a week per child in 'Scottish child payment'. The benefit has today been extended to reach more families, while the amount you can claim has also been boosted. Over 400,000 children could now be eligible. 

All reception year schoolchildren in Wales will start receiving free meals from September this year, with pupils in year one and year two to get free meals by April 2023, the Welsh Government has announced. It's expected that all 200,000 primary school children in Wales will receive free school meals by 2024. 

If you're on a low income and struggling with the cost of school uniform, you could get up to £200 to help in the form of a non-repayable grant. To help, we've searched through council websites to find which offer it – check below to see if you qualify and what you could get.

School leavers getting their A-level results this week should be aware that deferring for a year means they'll be on the new student finance system being introduced in England in September 2023, and will repay their loan for a much longer period, potentially costing £10,000s more.

Several councils in England have either scrapped or cut back on their provision of summer holiday vouchers for children eligible for free school meals, according to a BBC investigation, but there is still some help out there for those affected by the cuts. 

From today, all prepaid funeral plans in the UK will be policed by the financial regulator – meaning you'll be protected if you buy a plan from an authorised firm and it later goes bust. But if you're one of an estimated 50,000 people with a plan from an unauthorised provider, your money may be at risk. Here's what you need to know.

If you’re aged 55 or over and have a UK-based workplace or private pension pot that you've paid into that you want to access for the first time or transfer elsewhere, you must now be offered guidance from the free impartial Government service, Pension Wise.

Some £17 million worth of unused Tesco Clubcard vouchers is set to expire at the end of this month. If your vouchers are affected, you need to either use them by 11.59pm on Tuesday 31 May or use our trick to extend them. 

NHS prescription costs will remain frozen at £9.35 an item for the next 12 months. This is welcome news for many, but remember to check if you qualify for free prescriptions or if you can save money with a prescription 'season ticket', which the Government has just announced will also see a price freeze. See below for more details.