Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what fiscal steps he is taking to support households in Meriden constituency with their energy bills.

The government took action at Spring Budget 2023 to support struggling families in all constituencies, including by maintaining the Energy Price Guarantee support rate at £2500 per year until July 2023. This measure, alongside the £400 Energy Bills Support Scheme, brings total government support for energy bills to £1500 for the typical household since October 2022. The government is also removing the premium paid by 4 million households using prepayment meters (PPMs), bringing their costs into line with those paid by comparable households on Direct Debits (DD).

These measures are in addition to the uprating of benefits and Cost of Living Payments in 2023-24, which will help more than 8 million UK households on eligible means tested benefits, 8 million pensioner households and 6 million people across the UK on eligible disability benefits. Taken together, support to households to help with higher bills and cost of living is worth £94 billion, or £3,300 per household on average across 2022-23 and 2023-24.