The Energy Bill Relief Scheme will offer discounts for all firms for six months from 1 October. Hospitals, schools and other settings such as community halls and churches will also get help.
It comes after the government announced a £150bn plan to help households with their soaring bills for two years.
Officials have not put an overall price tag on the latest subsidy to firms as the ultimate cost will depend on what happens to the wholesale market price between October and April, when the support expires.
Under the scheme, revealed by the Department for Business, Energy and Industry, wholesale prices are expected to be fixed for all non-domestic energy customers at £211 per MWh for electricity and £75 per MWh for gas for six months. Firms do not need to contact suppliers as the discount will automatically be applied to bills and savings will be seen from October’s bills but received in November. The scheme will apply to fixed contracts agreed on or after 1 April and variable and flexible tariffs and contracts.
Prime Minister Liz Truss said the government understood the “huge pressure businesses, charities and public sector organisations are facing with their energy bills”.
“As we are doing for consumers, our new scheme will keep their energy bills down from October, providing certainty and peace of mind,” she said. “At the same time, we are boosting Britain’s homegrown energy supply so we fix the root cause of the issues we are facing and ensure greater energy security for us all.”
The Energy Bill Relief Scheme will apply to all non-domestic energy customers in England, Scotland and Wales. A parallel scheme, based on the same criteria and offering comparable support, will be established in Northern Ireland.
Presumably, hundreds of billions of pounds of tax-payers money will be used to fund this “scheme” …
If this is limited to UK companies who pay a fair share of UK tax then why not. But if it will include foreign registered companies &/or those who avoid UK tax then it’s an appalling waste of tax money.
The thing not everyone is making massive profits!
For many this is a lifeline.
If businesses were allowed to crash and burn unemployment and the follow on would be terrible, I can remember families losing their homes back in the 80s/90s .
The money has to come from somewhere….
@Ripple , So must we finance our own bail out ??
Summat don’t sound right there ?
Sounds like picking yourself up wiv your own bootlaces to me ??
The money IS THERE !
It’s just that the government don’t own it !??
In total, the most up-to-date government figures show a total of 5.58 million SMEs currently active in the UK. Small businesses (0-49 employees) number 5.5 million, making up 99.2% of total businesses. The UK is also home to 7,655 large businesses (classed as those that have more than 250 employees).
There’s a lot of struggling small businesses in desperate need ,99% of the business population is made up of small companies.
@Ripple ,“Borrowed money has to be paid back”
That’s exactly my point ,We are allready borrowed out thanks to Rishi !
You say the money has to come from ‘somewhere’ ? So where ??
Do we borrow more to pay to bail out these companies that are struggling ??Better to Tax the energy companies, BUT how?
they are not taxed in the UK !!
You obviously haven’t been reading my posts Rip?
I am not suggesting anything ?
I am asking why we are NOT doing anything concerning taxation ?
Businesses come here to sell their goods to us, but our government is loth
to tax them at the same rate as our citizens ??
@Ripple , No not a windfall tax that only taxes our providers, it’s the
producers we need to hit, but there is no way that l can see that we are able to
do that?
We are stymied at the moment !
