Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether all customers will be liable to pay back £40 a year to the Government from October 2022 regardless of whether they were in receipt of the £200 loan from the Government in April 2022.

All domestic electricity customers in Great Britain will receive a £200 reduction in their electricity costs from this October. This will be delivered via energy suppliers and will be clearly identifiable as a line item on electricity bills.

The energy bill reduction is not a loan – there is no interest due on it, no debt attached to it, and it will not affect recipients’ credit rating.

To spread the cost of the reduction as widely as possible, all domestic energy consumers will pay a charge in future years. This will be reflected by Ofgem in the price cap for future years, with sufficient notice given to suppliers to reflect it in fixed and other tariffs.

There will be cases where changes in people’s personal circumstances mean they may not directly be the recipient of the reduction, but still see increases in future bills, or vice versa.

The £200 reduction will help households manage the increase in energy bills by spreading the increased costs over a few years. The reduction will give households time for their finances to adjust rather than having to deal with the whole price increase up front, providing relief to millions of households.