PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Energy: Taxation (4 September 2015)

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps she is taking to ensure that the effect of existing green and social levies is more progressively distributed across the income scale.

Asked by:
Matthew Pennycook (Labour)

The Government is committed to keeping energy bills as low as possible as part of a long-term, coherent and affordable policy framework. As part of this we will continue to improve targeting of support to those most in need.

The Government already has a number of policies in place to ensure that energy and climate change policies help those that need it most. In particular, the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) specifically supports low income households and those at risk of fuel poverty with measures to improve the energy efficiency of their homes. This generates a net financial benefit over the long term, and also helps ensure that energy bills are lower than they would otherwise have been. ECO is estimated to support around 260,000 households on low incomes or in low income areas each year to March 2017.

Furthermore, the Warm Home Discount (WHD) generates the dual benefits of supporting over 2 million low income households each year with a £140 discount on their energy costs, and acting as a redistributive mechanism to help those least able to pay.

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Answered by:
Andrea Leadsom (Conservative)
14 September 2015