New update for people still waiting on means-tested cost of living payment from DWP

Starting off the new year strong! Jennifer Lopez, Anne Hathaway and more stars rang in 2023 with a bang.

Thousands of revellers returned from all over the world to welcome in New Year at Scotland’s biggest street party. Over 40,000 people flooded into Edinburgh for the world-famous Hogmanay for the first time in three years.

Queen founding member and guitarist Brian May received a knighthood as part of the UK’s New Year Honours List, the annual compendium of awards handed out by at the end of each year by the reigning monarch.

The UK Government recently announced a series of new cost of living payments to help millions of households across the country mitigate soaring inflation and ever-increasing energy bills. The new cost of living support package is worth £26 billion in 2023/24, in addition to benefits uprating, which is worth £11 billion to working age households and people with disabilities.

An estimated 19.2 million families and 39.8 million individuals across the UK currently in receipt of State Pension or benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will see their payments go up by 10.1% next year.

Kate Hudson and Jamie Lee Curtis are the latest Hollywood actors to weigh in on the topic of the “nepo baby,” a topic rekindled this month by a New York magazine cover story (and much more devoted to the topic) about the phenomena of the children of famous actors who follow in their parents’ footsteps.

As Ghislaine Maxwell spends her third miserable Christmas in jail, this image of her husband with his new girlfriend will be a bitter reminder of the life she once had. As he rebuilds his life without his sex trafficker wife, Scott Borgerson, 47, is dating Kris McGinn, a 50-year-old journalist from Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, where he still lives in the £5.8million seafront mansion he once shared with Maxwell.

Good afternoon Insiders and a happy holiday to you all, Max Goldbart here seeing out the year. We’re inching slowly towards the holiday and have just got a quick summary of the week’s headlines and some Essentials for you this week. We’ll be taking a well-earned (we hope!) break next week but back all systems go on Friday January 6. Until then, our heartfelt thanks go out to all you Insider readers. We are nothing without you. Merry Xmas, Happy Chanukah and a Happy New Year.

A new online petition is calling on the UK Government to increase the tax-free Personal Allowance threshold to “help families survive” the ongoing cost of living crisis. The standard Personal Allowance is £12,570, which is the amount of income you do not have to pay tax on.

New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday this year, which means days at the start of the first week of 2023 are classed as bank holidays. Monday, January 2, is an ‘observed’ bank holiday across the UK while Tuesday, January 3, is classed as a ‘substitute’ bank holiday - but only in Scotland.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed that the final batch of Winter Fuel Payments have now been processed and credited to eligible claimants’ bank accounts on Monday, December 12. This year’s heating bill help also includes the Pensioner Cost of Living Payment, providing up to £600 in extra support.

A royal expert says Harry and Meghan's "six hours of whining" while the UK is in the grip of a cost of living crisis shows how out of touch with reality they have become.

Brand new Netflix show 'Harry & Meghan' has got the whole world talking - but already, after just 24 hours, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have had to defend it with a statement.