Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will keep the Energy Business Discount Scheme under regular review to ensure it provides (a) support for businesses and (b) medium to long-term certainty on support so that businesses are able to plan ahead.

The new Energy Bills Discount Scheme (EBDS) will provide all eligible businesses and other non-domestic energy users across the UK with a discount on high energy bills until 31 March 2024, following the end of the current Energy Bill Relief Scheme. It will also provide businesses in sectors with particularly high levels of energy use and trade intensity with a higher level of support.

Through the current scheme, the Government provided an unprecedented package of support for non-domestic users through this winter. The Government has been clear that such levels of support, unprecedented in its nature and huge scale, were time-limited and intended as a bridge to allow businesses to adapt.

The new EBDS provides long term certainty for businesses and reflects how the scale of the challenge has changed since September last year. This will help those locked into contracts signed before recent substantial falls in the wholesale price manage their costs and provide others with reassurance against the risk of prices rising again.

In the longer-term, Energy Intensive Industries (EII) will continue to be supported by the Government’s EII exemption and compensation schemes. In April 2022 the Government extended the compensation scheme for a further 3 years and more than doubled its budget. On Thursday 23 February, the Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch announced further measures (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-action-to-supercharge-competitiveness-in-key-british-industries-and-grow-economy) to bring the energy costs of the UK’s energy intensive industries in line with those charged across the world’s major economies. This is crucial to helping these businesses remain internationally competitive and will enhance the UK’s attractiveness as a destination for international investment as well as remove barriers to move us further towards greener technology as part of a sustainable net zero future.

We will continue to closely monitor energy prices in the coming months.