This year will go down as a year of hardship for so many people: 2022 brought spiking energy bills and record levels of inflation that have eroded people’s incomes. But as former prime minister Gordon Brown warns in today’s Observer, next year will be harder still and hardest for low-income households, including less affluent pensioners, low-paid parents and their children and people with disabilities.
This is the result of Britain’s recession, forecast by the Bank of England to last two years, and energy bills that are forecast to continue to rise as government support with energy costs falls. From next April, the government’s energy price guarantee will become less generous, capping the average bill at £3,000 rather than £2,500 a year and the universal £400 worth of support that was paid to all households in winter 2022 will be withdrawn. To offset this reduction, the government has increased the level of targeted support at those in receipt of means-tested benefits: all pensioners and those receiving disability benefits will get £300 and £150, as they did last year, and people on means-tested benefits will get a one-off payment of £900, up from £650 last year. So there is less support to go round, but it is more targeted on low-income households.
