Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to provide support to students in higher education who are living away from home for their energy bills.

In private rented accommodation, landlords are required to reflect in the price they charge for energy, the actual costs and any Government support they receive through the Energy Bills Support Scheme and Energy Price Guarantee. This includes, where landlords charge based on usage, making a reasonable estimate of the appropriate unit rate to charge.

Where students live in commercially provided accommodation supplied by a non-domestic contract such as a hall of residence, they may benefit from the Energy Bill Relief Scheme depending on when the commercial provider signed their energy contract. If so, the commercial provider is required to pass on the savings to their student tenants.