Recommendation 2

HM Government Not Addressed

15. The UK Government’s role in supporting the needs of Scotland, and rural households, transcends just the cost of living package. 16. The 2021 Spending Review set the largest annual block grants of any spending review settlement since the devolution acts. This provided £41 billion per year for the Scottish Government, who are receiving around 25% more funding per person than equivalent UK Government spending in other parts of the UK. That translates into £8.5 billion more per year on average. 17. On top of the substantial share of UK funding they receive, the Scottish Government have also agreed tax powers to increase their funding, as well as the ability to borrow up to £450 million per year to enhance their capital investment. These limits will be uprated annually, using the latest OBR forecast for the GDP deflator. 18. As set out in both the written evidence and oral evidence provided by the UK Government, a historically large support package was provided throughout the UK in response to the significant pressures relating to the cost of living. This included both UK-wide and targeted measures to protect households, businesses and communities against the worst of these impacts. 19. The UK Government is already in the process of undertaking reviews on the wider issue of cost of living. Individual UK Government departments are conducting reviews on respective schemes deployed, for both internal and external use with different timelines and expected outputs, which will address much of this recommendation. 20. Impact assessments were conducted for both the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 Cost of Living Payments for means-tested and disability benefit recipients and included estimates for payments at parliamentary, local authority and regional levels. 21. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has published management information on the number of payments made and the amount spent for each type of payment as they have been made. More detailed information on Cost of Living Payments including similar geographical breakdowns are planned as the subject of an upcoming statistical release. 22. An evaluation of the Cost of Living Payments is also underway. This will seek to understand their effectiveness as a means of support for low-income and vulnerable households. Fieldwork has recently commenced with full findings expected to be available later in the year. 23. In response to the rising cost of energy in 2022, the UK Government introduced a cost of living assistance package to support domestic consumers with rising energy bills, comprising of programmes including (but not limited to) the Energy Price Guarantee (EPG), the Energy Bill Support Schemes (programme) and the Alternative Fuels Payment (AFP). The EBSS programme was comprised of five schemes: a) Energy Bills Support Scheme (EBSS); b) Energy Bills Support Scheme and Alternative Fuel Payment Northern Ireland (EBSS AFP NI); c) Energy Bills Support Scheme Alternative Funding (EBSS AF); d) Energy Bills Support Scheme Alternative Funding for Northern Ireland (EBSS AF NI); e) Energy Bills Support Scheme Alternative Funding for Continuous Cruisers (EBSS AF CC). 24. The UK Government introduced the Energy Bills Support Scheme (EBSS) as a one-off £400 reduction to energy bills between October 2022 and March 2023 for domestic electricity customers in Great Britain. The scheme intended to provide universal support to around 28 million households. 25. The Energy Bills Support Scheme Alternative Funding (EBSS AF) launched in February 2023 and closed to new applications in May 2023, providing £400 equivalent support for households and places of residence in Great Britain (GB) who were not eligible to receive support automatically through EBSS. 26. Those eligible for EBSS AF included homes without a domestic electricity supply or contract with an electricity supplier who were typically off grid or receiving energy commercially through an intermediary, for example, individuals living: a) in a park home; b) in a care home; c) on a houseboat; d) in a mobile home; e) on a farm; f) off the electricity grid. 27. The uptake for EBSS AF in Great Britain was approximately 208k applications for the scheme, compared to the uptake for EBSS AF NI at approximately 8k applications (216k total applications). Of this total, approximately 150k claims were paid (145k in GB and 5k in NI) based on eligibility. 28. The Energy Price Guarantee (EPG) protected customers from increases in energy costs by limiting the amount suppliers could charge per unit of grid gas and electricity used. From October 2022 to June 2023, it brought a typical household energy bill in Great Britain for dual-fuel gas and electricity down to around £2,500 per year, saving a typical household around £1,100 compared to what they would have paid under the price cap alone. Homes with higher energy costs would have saved more. EPG was a universal scheme which paid a discount to all households supplied directly with grid gas o