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 a social energy tariff for charities.

The Energy Bill Relief Scheme provides a discount on the wholesale element of gas and electricity bills to ensure that all eligible charities are protected from excessively high energy costs over the winter period. The new Energy Bill Discount Scheme will run from April 2023 until March 2024 and will continue to provide support to eligible charities.

Wider support is available to help charities with costs. This includes a reduction in VAT, from 20% to 5% and exclusion from the main rates of the Climate Change Levy on some of the energy they use.