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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of assessing the energy and trade intensity of individual businesses, including commercial laundries, rather than wider sectors defined by standard industrial classification codes.

During the review of the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, analysis of a large number of contributions from different individual companies in the private sector in addition to trade associations, the voluntary sector and other types of organisations were assessed. HM Treasury decided which types of business were given additional support in addition to the universal Energy Bills Discount Scheme (EBDS).

There are over 5.5 million businesses in the UK, not including other non-domestic consumers. Considering their energy bills on an individual basis would not have been practical.