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 introducing a social energy tariff on household energy bills.
The Government replaced Social Tariffs in the energy sector with the Warm Home Discount Scheme from 2011. The Warm Home Discount scheme provides £140 in data matched, targeted support and from 2022/23 this will provide £150 to an extra 780,000 households, with around 2.7million households to receive support every year.
The Government is very aware of the difficulties that consumers have experienced as a result of the rise in energy prices. My Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a new package of support to help households with their energy bills on 3 February. This includes a £200 discount on household energy bills this Autumn for domestic electricity customers in Great Britain; a £150 non-repayable rebate on Council Tax bills for all households in Council Tax Bands A-D in England; and an additional £144 million of discretionary funding for Local Authorities to support households who are not eligible for the Council Tax rebate.