Cost of Living ● The Government understands how the rising cost of living is making life harder for people. These are global challenges, however, the Government is providing support worth over £22 billion in 2022-23 to help families with these pressures. The Government will continue to keep the situation under review, recognising the high level of current uncertainty and continue to monitor the ongoing impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the economy. We will be ready to take further steps, if needed, to support households. ● We are boosting the incomes of the lowest paid: o raising the National Living Wage by 6.6 per cent to £9.50 from April 2022, meaning an extra £1,000 a year for a full-time worker; o increasing the National Insurance Threshold in July, worth £330 in the year from July for a typical employee – the single largest personal tax cut for a decade; and o giving 1.7 million families around an extra £1,000 a year, on average, through our cut to the Universal Credit taper rate and increase to the work allowance. ● We are helping families with their energy costs: o providing a £150 council tax rebate for those in Bands A-D in England from April and £144 million of discretionary funding for Local Authorities to support households who need support but are not eligible for the Council Tax rebate; o a £200 reduction in households’ energy bills delivered from October. This helps households smooth out the increased costs of energy bills at a time when they are particularly high, with the costs of the reduction spread as widely as possible so that no household pays more than £40 per year through the levy. o on top of this, we are providing a £150 rebate on the energy bills of three million low-income households from October through the Warm Home Discount; o providing seasonal cold weather payments of an extra £25 a week for up to four million people during sustained cold periods; and o giving up to £300 in Winter Fuel Payments to people of State Pension age.
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