Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps her Department is taking to support public houses to pay their energy bills.

Businesses, including public houses, have already benefitted from the Energy Bill Relief Scheme which ended on 31 March and provided £7.4 billion of support. Eligible businesses will continue to get a baseline discount on energy bills under the Energy Bills Discount Scheme (EBDS) from 1 April 2023 until 31 March 2024.

We are also helping the industry by cutting their business rates by 75%, as well as increasing the Draught Relief duty differential from 5% to 9.2% to ensure the duty on a draught pint served in a pub did not increase from August.