Warm Home Discount extended to 2.7 million more households

Energy measure discounts of £150 volition beryllium extended to different 2.7 cardinal households to assistance with substance costs this winter.

It brings the fig of households eligible for the Warm Home Discount up to conscionable implicit 6 million, including 900,000 families with children, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said.

The changes mean each measure payer connected means-tested benefits volition qualify, removing the high-cost-to-heat threshold successful the existent regulations.

It follows a authorities consultation connected expanding the one-off outgo to much radical struggling with substance poverty.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: "I cognize families are inactive struggling with the outgo of living, and I cognize the fearfulness that comes with not being capable to spend your adjacent bill.

"Providing information and bid of caput for moving radical is profoundly idiosyncratic to maine arsenic premier curate and foundational for the Plan for Change.

"I person nary uncertainty that, similar rolling retired escaped schoolhouse meals, meal clubs and childcare support, extending this £150 vigor bills enactment to millions much families volition marque a existent difference."

The Conservatives criticised the move, saying the announcement volition lone chopped bills for a 4th of households.

Andrew Bowie, the acting shadiness vigor secretary, criticised Labour's greenish vigor drive, claiming that it would summation bills for astir people.

"Kemi Badenoch and I person been wide that nett zero by 2050 is intolerable without bankrupting Britain and making hard-working families worse off," helium said.

Read More:
Battle to person MPs to backmost payment cuts to much than 3 cardinal households
Energy bosses clash implicit 'postcode pricing' proposals

Typical yearly vigor bills are expected to autumn by £129 from July, Ofgem has said.

However emblematic bills nether the July to September 2025 terms headdress volition inactive beryllium 42% higher than successful wintertime 2021/22, according to a House of Commons probe briefing.

The Warm Home Discount strategy was introduced by the conjugation authorities successful 2011 to assistance radical connected debased incomes with their substance bills.

Adam Scorer, the main enforcement of National Energy Action, said today's announcement is "hugely affirmative news" but is "far from sturdy".

"The rebate has lone accrued by a meagre £10 during a play successful which vigor bills person gone up by £500 a twelvemonth and determination is nary clarity connected the programme beyond the extremity of March adjacent year," helium said.

"This announcement is bully quality for this winter, but the authorities needs to travel up with a longer-term program for providing deeper enactment successful aboriginal for radical who cannot spend a lukewarm and steadfast home."