Families on means-tested benefits will receive energy bill support if the Government decides to launch a targeted relief package this winter, The i Paper can reveal.
A system to target bill support has been drawn up that is restricted to benefit claimants because the Treasury currently has no way of targeting households purely based on income, insiders said.
In the spring, the then Chancellor Rachel Reeves said that any government action to help people deal with the impact on energy bills from the Iran war would be targeted at “those who need it most”. She subsequently said that the Government was “looking at ways in which we can support people based on their household income”.
The decision was aimed at learning from 2022, when a universal support package introduced by Liz Truss in response to the energy price fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ended up costing the taxpayer nearly £40bn.
While a system to differentiate families based on their total household income is seen as the “holy grail” and something which officials are still working towards, it is complicated to achieve and will not be ready this winter, The i Paper understands.
