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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to his Answer of 20 December 2022 to Question 114793 on Health: Energy, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies of expected levels of self-disconnection of prepayment meters in winter 2022-23.

The Government remains committed to protecting consumers from high energy costs, especially the most vulnerable. In the 2022 Autumn statement, the Government announced that households on means-tested benefits will receive an additional £900 Cost of Living payment in 2023-24. Pensioner households will receive an additional £300 Cost of Living payment, and individuals on disability benefits will receive an additional £150 Disability Cost of Living payment in 2023-24. This is additional to the £37 billion support package announced earlier in 2022, with millions of the most vulnerable households receiving at least £1,200 of one-off support to help with the cost of living.