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Chancellor rules out extra support for energy bills

Households are unlikely to get additional support on energy bills from April, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said.

Energy bills for a typical household are expected to rise from £2,500 to £3,000 a year.

The government is under pressure to offer people extra help to cope with high gas and electricity bills.

Consumer finance expert Martin Lewis said allowing the bill hike was a “national act of harm”.

The state energy price guarantee lowers household costs per unit of energy consumed.

From April, the typical household bill is allowed to rise to £3,000 a year. The scheme runs until April 2024.

A £400 rebate, which will apply to most households’ energy bills from October, is also due to end in early April.

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Some groups receive extra cash payments to help with energy bills, including households on means-tested benefits, retirees and some people on disability benefits.

Mr Lewis has written to the Chancellor warning him that another 1.7 million people would fall into fuel poverty – if people cannot afford to heat their homes adequately – bringing the total to 8.4 million.

Mr Hunt told the BBC that the Treasury had “reviewed” all support, but he didn’t think the government had “the leeway to launch a big new initiative to help people”.

The National Audit Office recently published a report saying the energy price guarantee will now cost less than £40bn and saying it is a way to bring down inflation and avoid a recession.

Mr Hunt said: “We’re always looking at what else we can do. But we also have to be responsible about public finances because if we don’t do that, interest rates will only go up and people will face a different kind of cost, and so we have to get that balance right.”

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