Energy bills: Rishi Sunak gives one-off repayable £200 discount to households
Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 7:00 pm
Many to get additional support from £150 rebate on council tax, but no help for businesses amid rising costs
A one-off repayable £200 discount and a rebate on council tax bills have been announced by Rishi Sunak in a £9bn package designed to “take the sting” out of a £700-a-year rise in the average household’s energy bills in April.
The chancellor said 80% of households would receive £350 in support this year in response to the decision by the energy regulator Ofgem to raise its price cap to just under £2,000.
In an attempt to mitigate Britain’s cost of living crisis, Sunak said:Adam Scorer, the chief executive of National Energy Action, a fuel poverty charity, said: “We needed deep, targeted support for the most vulnerable. We have shallow, broad measures for all. That simply does not work.”
- All households would receive £200 off their energy bills in October – but then pay the discount back by £40 a year over five years from 2023
- Council taxpayers in England in bands A to D would receive a rebate of £150 from their bills in April, which will not have to be paid back.
- Local authorities would receive £150m to make discretionary payments to the neediest.
- The number of poorer households eligible for the warm homes discount – worth £150 from October – would be increased by a third to 3m.
The charity warned that the depth of support offered by the Treasury’s package of measures was not proportionate to the financial toll which is expected to drive the number of UK households living in fuel poverty to the highest level on record by this spring.
“A household paying by prepayment [meter] will still have a £500 increase when you take into account rises from October 2021 and April 2022,” Scorer said. “We expect the government will have no choice but to return to the issue of spiralling fuel poverty and another price rise later this year.”