IT HAS long been known that many more people in the UK die in winter months than at other times of year. It has never been a secret.
Year after year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), published the data to prove it.
That is until 2022, when the annual publications abruptly ended, without any official explanation as far as I am aware. It took a Freedom of Information request to winkle out the real story – this is the ONS response in February 2026 to that FoI:
You asked
I would like to request the following recorded information held by the Office for National Statistics:
· The total number of excess winter deaths (or excess winter mortality figure) in England and Wales for the winter period 2024/25 (defined as December 2024 to March 2025, or the standard ONS winter definition if different).
· If available as part of the above or separately recorded, a breakdown of these excess winter deaths by age group, particularly for those aged 65 and over (or State Pension age / older persons / OAPs equivalent).
· Any provisional, estimated, or final figures for cold-related mortality (or deaths attributable to cold weather / low temperatures) in the UK (or England and Wales) during the winter of 2024/25, including any modelling, estimates, or direct counts if held.
If the full annual excess winter mortality bulletin or dataset covering winter 2024/25 has not yet been published, please provide:
· The current expected publication date or release schedule for this data.
· Any provisional or interim figures, weekly/monthly breakdowns, or related surveillance data already held that indicate excess mortality during the relevant winter months.
We said
Thank you for your request.
Previously published annual data on excess winter mortality from 1950 to 2022 are available in our winter mortality in England and Wales Statistical bulletins, using the excess winter deaths (EWD) and excess winter mortality index (EWMI) measures. However, this release was discontinued following the consultation that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) ran with the Department for Health and Social Care (including the Office for Health Improvements and Disparities), NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA), UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and NHS England. This was because of limitations with the methodology used to produce these measures.
The UKHSA published a cold mortality monitoring report, England: winter 2024 to 2025 annual report on 18 February 2026 at 9:30am. This report provides the first national estimates of mortality associated with low temperatures during cold weather episodes in England over the winter season. These results are intended to inform public health preparedness and support action to reduce health impacts during periods of cold weather in England.
Limitations with the methodology? That is ridiculous. They are gaslighting the public. The ONS methodology was both simple and unarguable. This is how they defined it:
There is no need for complicated statistics.
The consultation the ONS speaks of was clearly a political stitch-up from the start, directed by the NHS and the UKHSA. It was the latter, you may recall, which published the fake heatwave death data recently.
The undeniable fact that many more people die in winter months has long been an embarrassment to the Government’s Climate Agenda. Attempts to scare the public about the health implications of a warmer climate are invariably met with the response that a warmer climate will save lives overall. Meanwhile, silly amber alerts from the Met Office about a bit of sunny weather are routinely mocked and ignored with thousands flocking to the beaches.
So, how to get rid of this pesky excess winter death data? Simple – just stop publishing it.
Instead, as the ONS note, we must now rely on the UKHSA, the Government’s UK Health Security Agency, to provide us with the information. And here is their first annual bulletin, published in February 2026:
Miraculously, excess winter deaths have fallen from tens of thousands to 2,544.
How has this been achieved?
Instead of analysing mortality throughout the whole of the winter, they have simply my looked at just a few days when it was extremely cold.
As I revealed earlier this month, the UKHSA falsely claimed that 1,504 died last summer. In other words, according to the UKHSA, roughly the same number of people die from heat as die from cold.
Although the ONS no longer publish the excess death data, the monthly mortality statistics on which it is based is still available. Using exactly the same methodology as the ONS, I can confirm that the winter excess deaths in 2024/25 totalled 27,540. Not the 2,544 that the UKHSA would like you to believe.
According to the ONS, they are ‘the UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics and its recognised national statistical institute’.
If they are truly ‘independent’, why have they bowed the knee to government demands to cease the publication of politically inconvenient statistics?
