Energy: Prices

(asked on 4th February 2022) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the findings of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation findings of 3 February 2022, that single adult households on low incomes will spend 43 per cent on average of their income after housing costs on energy bills.


Answered by
Helen Whately Portrait
Helen Whately
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 14th February 2022

The Government understands that people are concerned about pressure on household budgets, particularly due to rising energy bills, and is taking action to help. That is why we have announced a package of support to help households with rising energy bills, worth £9.1 billion in 2022-23.

Alongside this package, we are already taking steps to ease cost of living pressures. This includes a reduction in the Universal Credit taper rate from 63% to 55%, and an increase in Universal Credit work allowances by £500 p.a. to make work pay, freezing alcohol and fuel duties to keep costs down, and increasing the National Living Wage by 6.6% to £9.50 an hour for workers aged 23 and over in April 2022, which will benefit more than 2 million workers.

Lastly, the government’s Plan for Jobs is helping people into work and giving them the skills they need to progress – the best approach to managing the cost of living in the long term. At Spending Review 2021, to continue to boost employment, wages and living standards, we invested in our most successful Plan for Jobs schemes and introduced a new package of measures – taking the total DWP spend on labour market support to more than £6 billion over the next three years. The Government also recently announced the ‘Way to Work’ campaign to get 500,000 jobseekers into jobs by the end of June. We know work is the best way for people to get on, to improve their lives and support their families because people on benefits are at least £6,000 better off in full time work.

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