Should help with energy bills depend on weather?
Sunak is told those in North deserve more – as it’s colder
TORY MPs last night demanded more financial support with energy bills for colder parts of the country as well as cuts to VAT and green levies.
One backbencher said it was wrong for politicians earning more than £80,000 to legislate to push up heating costs for the poorest in society.
Another questioned why Britain was so reliant on Putin’s gas rather than building up its own reserves. Rishi Sunak continued to hold meetings with rebellious Tory backbenchers who urged him to tackle the cost of living crisis.
One MP urged the Chancellor to consider giving more money to areas with colder weather. The Treasury said that the idea would be looked at.
Cold weather payments give an extra £25 to pensioners on benefits if local temperatures drop to below freezing for seven days, but the system does not apply to all or cover whole areas.
Ministers are considering extensions to the Warm Home Discount, which gives £140 a year towards energy bills to 2.2million on benefits.
Experts predict rising wholesale energy prices will hike bills by 50 per cent in April, costing households hundreds of pounds extra. Labour forced a Commons vote on scrapping the 5 per cent energy VAT rate for a year, but the motion lost by 319 votes to 229.
Some of the most critical of Mr Johnson’s energy policies were MPs from formerly Labour seats in the North of England. These areas could benefit from schemes targeting funding at colder areas.
Lee Anderson, the Conservative MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, argued for the removal of green levies, adding ‘a lot of us are sat here on over £80,000 a year... and we are telling poor people that they must pay more to heat their rooms’. Conservative Craig Mackinlay, who represents South Thanet in Kent, said: ‘Is it at all sensible that Britain and the EU spend billions with Putin’s Russia on gas so that he can have more money to create weapons of offence on the borders of Europe?’
n A council is facing an enormous bill after discovering it has not paid for gas for 17 years. Beverley Town Council in East Yorkshire ‘does not have a gas supplier, despite using and receiving gas since 2004’. The discovery was made in November when an engineer was called to the council’s offices to fix a broken gas boiler.