- The most vulnerable households across Northern Ireland will receive support up to £1,000 this year, including a new one-off £650 cost of living payment
- This new UK-wide £15 billion support package is targeted towards millions of low-income households and brings the total cost of living support to £37 billion.
- New temporary Energy Profits Levy on oil and gas firms will raise around £5 billion over the next year to help with cost of living, with a new investment allowance to encourage firms to invest in oil and gas extraction in the UK.
The significant intervention includes a new, one-off £650 payment to more than 8 million low-income households on Universal Credit, Tax Credits and legacy benefits to be made in two tranches starting in the summer, with separate one-off payments of £300 to pensioner households and £150 to individuals receiving disability benefits - groups who are most vulnerable to rising prices.
The new Cost of Living Support package will mean that the most vulnerable households in Northern Ireland will receive up to around £1,000 of extra support this year.
To ensure there is support for everyone who needs it, Mr Sunak also announced a £500 million increase for the Household Support Fund. This brings the total Household Support Fund to £1.5 billion.
To help pay for the extra support - which takes the total direct government cost of living support to £37 billion - Mr Sunak said a new temporary 25% Energy Profits Levy would be introduced for oil and gas companies, reflecting their extraordinary profits. At the same time, in order to increase the incentive to invest the new levy will include a generous new 80% investment allowance. This balanced approach allows the government to deliver support to families, while encouraging investment and growth.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said:
I know that people in Northern Ireland are feeling the anxiety of rising bills. We are introducing a package of measures directly from the UK Government to help with the cost of living that will support the most vulnerable households in Northern Ireland by up to £1,000.
To help pay for this, we are going to introduce a temporary, targeted levy on the windfall profits the oil and gas sector is seeing due to exceptionally high oil and gas prices while still encouraging the investment that creates jobs.
There is now more certainty that households will need further support, with inflation having risen faster than forecast and Ofgem expecting a further rise in the energy price cap in October.
So as part of the government's targeted support, the Chancellor announced that around eight million of the lowest income households on Universal Credit, Tax Credits, and legacy benefits will receive an automatic £650 cost of living payment in two instalments via the welfare system this year. Today's announcement is on top of the government's existing £22 billion cost of living support which includes February's energy bills intervention and action taken at this year's Spring Statement including a £330 tax cut for millions of workers through the NICs threshold increase in July and 5p cut to fuel duty.
Energy Profits Levy
Surging commodity prices, driven in part by Russia's war on Ukraine, has meant that the oil and gas sector have been making extraordinary profits. Ministers have been clear that they want to see the sector reinvest these profits in oil and gas extraction in the UK.
In order both to fairly tax the extraordinary profits and encourage investment, the Chancellor announced a temporary new Energy Profits Levy with a generous investment allowance built in. This nearly doubles the tax relief available and means the more investment a firm makes, the less tax it will pay.
The new Levy will be charged on oil and gas company profits at a rate of 25% and is expected to raise around £5 billion in its first 12 months, which will go towards easing the burden on families. It will be temporary, and if oil and gas prices return to historically more normal levels, will be phased out.
The new Investment Allowance, similar in style to the super-deduction, incentivises companies to invest through saving them 91p for every £1 they invest. This nearly doubles the tax relief available and means the more a company invests, the less tax they will pay.
The government expects the combination of the Levy and the new investment allowance to lead to an overall increase in investment, and the OBR will take account of this policy in their next forecast.
The Levy does not apply to the electricity generation sector - where extraordinary profits are also being made due to the impact that rising gas prices have on the price paid for electricity in the UK market, which has also been making extraordinary profits partly due to record gas prices but also due to how the market works. As set out in the Energy Security Strategy the government is consulting with the power generation sector and investors to drive forward energy market reforms and ensure that the price paid for electricity is more reflective of the costs of production.
The Chancellor announced today that the Treasury will urgently evaluate the scale of these extraordinary profits and the appropriate steps to take.
During the announcement, the Chancellor also set out the government's strategy to control inflation through independent monetary policy, fiscal responsibility, and supply side activism - a plan he said that should see inflation come down and returning to its target over time.
