Water Charges: Social Tariffs

(asked on 19th February 2024) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to bring forward legislative proposals on the (a) discount levels and (b) eligibility criteria that water companies must apply to social tariff schemes.


Answered by
Robbie Moore Portrait
Robbie Moore
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 29th February 2024

All water companies currently have social tariffs in place to support customers who struggle to pay their bill. Existing schemes provided more than £206 million of support to 1,363,839 vulnerable customers across England and Wales in 2022-23. This ensured bill reductions of £151 on average and up to £313 for those struggling the most.

The Government does not set the eligibility criteria, nor the level of support provided in these schemes. Statutory guidance requires companies to balance their support for low-income households against the interests of other customers who largely fund social tariffs via cross-subsidies. Therefore, companies must demonstrate that their customer base supports the level of cross-subsidy they apply to fund their social tariff schemes.

To ensure the best support to customers, the Government continues to work with the industry to explore options to improve the present social tariff arrangements and welcomes the planned household charging trials in 2024-25 and during the 2025-30 Price Review period.

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