Michael Kill CEO NTIA Says:
“We welcome the detail of the long awaited announcement of the “Energy Bill Relief Scheme” for businesses, and cautiously work through the impacts and benefits of the scheme with members.”
“However we remain concerned that this measure to cap the wholesale price to Energy supply companies may not result in sufficient relief being extended to business customers, given that energy suppliers remain free to impose additional mark-ups such as network charges and operating costs, which are uncapped. The net result of this could be a position where small businesses are still being asked to pay unaffordable energy bills of several hundred percent more than in previous years, which is clearly not sustainable.”
“While we acknowledge that it will take some time for details and final pricing to businesses to become clearer, we also note that this proposal will exclude businesses that renewed before the 1st April where energy costs were still untenable, and does nothing to alleviate the high levels of energy supply debt incurred by businesses exposed to uncapped pricing over the last few quarters, and in isolation is unlikely to be enough to ensure businesses have the financial headroom to survive this winter.”
“If we are to ensure the survival of our sector it remains imperative that the short term relief announced today is extended to 12 months and followed up with further action by the Government in the budget this Friday, and that such action must incorporate our core asks, specifically business rates relief and a reduction in VAT across the board.”
“We will now have to wait for the announcement on Friday from the Chancellor on further support, however, we must note that the measures being discussed to date such as corporation tax relief will simply not be sufficient, given only one in four hospitality businesses would currently benefit from such measures, as three out of four are not trading profitably.”
