By Latest £10b Government package to ‘help’ with energy bills
In a new effort to tackle rising costs, households in England, Scotland and Wales are set to have hundreds of pounds knocked off energy bills this winter.
This is part of a £10bn package set out by the Government, to help people cope with soaring prices.
The government is to scrap a plan to give people £200 off their bills in October, which the sum would have been repaid over 5 years.
It is now understood that sum will be increased and will not need to be paid back, additional help for those on the lowest incomes is also expected.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is said to make the announcement later and is expected to be largely funded by a windfall tax on oil and gas firms that could raise £7bn.
The move comes a day after Civil Servant Sue Gray published her damning report into lockdown breaches at Downing Street, citing a culture in the commons and failure of leadership.
The connotations of this latest introduction could see the move as a distraction over the continuous bad headlines emerging from No10- could this move be a drastic attempt to win back public favour?; Utilising advantage of the publics’ dire position to gain political favour short term.
Earlier this week the UK’s energy regulator Ofgem said the typical household energy bill are set to rise by £800 in October, bringing the typical household bill to £2,800 a year.
Back in April, staggering bills had already risen on average by £700.
Ofgem warned that 12 million households could be placed into fuel poverty, that being a household that has to spend more than 10% of its budget on energy bills.
Dame Clare Moriarty, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said the “bulk” of government support needed to go to those on the lowest incomes “who are suffering the most severe consequences of this cost of living crisis”.
She told the BBC the charity was now helping more than 750 people every day with foodbank vouchers.
“We have got people in this country who cannot put food on the table, they cannot keep their lights on and the heating on,” she said.
Opposition parties have repeatedly called for a windfall tax on energy companies that have made huge profits, in large part because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The government had previously shunned calls to impose the one-off levy, with some senior members of the cabinet arguing it could deter energy firms from investing in the UK.
It is understood the prime minister has now sided with Mr. Sunak, who had been pushing for the tax, which would suggest a purposeful move considering the continuous rebellion of Tory MPs and the increasing distrust from the general public of the PM.
The Treasury said the government understood “that people are struggling with rising prices” and that Mr. Sunak had been “clear that as the situation evolves, so will our response”.
