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| 1 | +# Cost-of-Living Payments and Energy Bills Rebate |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +In response to the 2021-23 cost-of-living crisis the UK government |
| 4 | +announced two distinct one-off support packages. Both are modelled in |
| 5 | +PolicyEngine UK under `gov.treasury.*` and feed into household net |
| 6 | +income via [`gov_spending`](https://github.com/PolicyEngine/policyengine-uk/blob/main/policyengine_uk/variables/gov/gov_spending.py) |
| 7 | +and the HBAI benefit aggregates. |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +## Energy Bills Rebate (winter 2022) |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +Announced by the Chancellor in February 2022 to help households with the |
| 12 | +spike in domestic energy prices. Two strands: |
| 13 | + |
| 14 | +- **£150 Council Tax Rebate** for households in Council Tax bands A–D in |
| 15 | + England, paid in April 2022. Equivalent payments were made by the |
| 16 | + devolved administrations. |
| 17 | +- **£200 Energy Bills Credit** delivered via energy suppliers to all |
| 18 | + domestic electricity customers from October 2022. Originally announced |
| 19 | + as a repayable loan, the repayment requirement was scrapped at the May |
| 20 | + 2022 emergency support package. |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +PolicyEngine models these via: |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | +- `energy_bills_rebate` (Household, YEAR) = `ebr_council_tax_rebate` + |
| 25 | + `ebr_energy_bills_credit` |
| 26 | +- Parameters at `parameters/gov/treasury/energy_bills_rebate/`: |
| 27 | + - `energy_bills_credit.yaml` — the £200 flat household amount |
| 28 | + - `council_tax_rebate/bands.yaml` — qualifying CT bands (A–D) |
| 29 | + - `council_tax_rebate/amount.yaml` — the £150 rebate amount |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +## Cost-of-Living Payments (2022-23 and 2023-24) |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | +Two successive packages, both modelled through the variable |
| 34 | +`cost_of_living_support_payment` at `gov/treasury/cost_of_living_support/`. |
| 35 | +The variable returns the **sum** of three independent strands depending |
| 36 | +on which qualifying benefits the household receives: |
| 37 | + |
| 38 | +| Strand | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | Qualifying benefits | |
| 39 | +|--------|---------|---------|---------------------| |
| 40 | +| Means-tested CoL Payment | £650 (two instalments) | £900 (three instalments) | Universal Credit, Pension Credit, Housing Benefit, income-based JSA / ESA, Income Support | |
| 41 | +| Pensioner CoL Payment | £300 | £300 | Winter Fuel Payment recipients | |
| 42 | +| Disability CoL Payment | £150 | £150 | DLA, PIP, Attendance Allowance, AFCS, IIDB, SDA, child / war disability pension | |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | +From 2024-01-01 the parameter values are explicitly reset to zero so the |
| 45 | +one-off doesn't extrapolate forward. |
| 46 | + |
| 47 | +### How PolicyEngine computes the payment |
| 48 | + |
| 49 | +For each strand `s ∈ {means_tested_households, pensioners, disabled}`: |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | +``` |
| 52 | +on_s = (sum of household's reported amounts in s.qualifying_benefits) > 0 |
| 53 | +strand_s = s.amount(period) * on_s |
| 54 | +``` |
| 55 | + |
| 56 | +Total `cost_of_living_support_payment = means_test_bonus + pensioner_bonus + disabled_bonus`, |
| 57 | +i.e. the strands stack — a pensioner on Pension Credit who also receives PIP |
| 58 | +will collect all three payments. This matches the actual policy. |
| 59 | + |
| 60 | +## References |
| 61 | + |
| 62 | +- [HMT/DWP, May 2022 cost-of-living support package announcement](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/millions-of-most-vulnerable-households-will-receive-1200-of-help-with-cost-of-living) |
| 63 | +- DWP, [Cost-of-Living Payments 2023-24 guidance](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/cost-of-living-payments-2023-to-2024) (means-tested, pensioner and disability strands). |
| 64 | +- HMT, [Energy Bills Support Scheme](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-energy-bills-support-scheme-explainer) and [Council Tax Energy Rebate](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-council-tax-rebate-2022-23-billing-authority-guidance). |
| 65 | +- House of Commons Library briefing [CBP-9501 — Cost of Living Payments and the energy crisis](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9501/). |
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