Mini-Budget September 2022 – Government announces plans to cut energy bills for businesses

Budget Summary

• National Insurance Contributions
• Income Tax
• Business
• Stamp Duty Land Tax
• Other Comments
• Government announces plans to cut energy bills for businesses
• Energy price guarantee plan caps household bills
• New plans for patients aims to tackle NHS backlog

Government announces plans to cut energy bills for businesses

On 21 September 2022 the government announced a new scheme, the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, which is designed to cut energy prices for non-domestic energy customers, such as businesses, charities and public sector organisations. The new scheme is in addition to the recently announced Energy Price Guarantee for households.

The scheme will apply to fixed contracts agreed on or after 1 April 2022 in addition to deemed, variable and flexible tariffs and contracts. Running for an initial six-month period, the scheme will apply to energy usage from 1 October 2022 to 31 March 2023. According to the government, savings will first be seen in businesses’ October bills.

Businesses are not required to take action or apply for the scheme, support will be automatically applied to bills.

The government intends to conduct a review of the scheme in three months to assess:

• how effective it has been in giving support to vulnerable, non-domestic customers
• which groups of non-domestic customers remain vulnerable to energy price rises
• the extent to which the scheme could either be extended or further targeted.

Support after 31 March 2023 will be determined following the review.