In response to the 2021-23 cost-of-living crisis the UK government
announced two distinct one-off support packages. Both are modelled in
PolicyEngine UK under gov.treasury.* and feed into household net
income via gov_spending
and the HBAI benefit aggregates.
Energy Bills Rebate (winter 2022)¶
Announced by the Chancellor in February 2022 to help households with the spike in domestic energy prices. Two strands:
£150 Council Tax Rebate for households in Council Tax bands A–D in England, paid in April 2022. Equivalent payments were made by the devolved administrations.
£200 Energy Bills Credit delivered via energy suppliers to all domestic electricity customers from October 2022. Originally announced as a repayable loan, the repayment requirement was scrapped at the May 2022 emergency support package.
PolicyEngine models these via:
energy_bills_rebate(Household, YEAR) =ebr_council_tax_rebate+ebr_energy_bills_creditParameters at
parameters/gov/treasury/energy_bills_rebate/:energy_bills_credit.yaml— the £200 flat household amountcouncil_tax_rebate/bands.yaml— qualifying CT bands (A–D)council_tax_rebate/amount.yaml— the £150 rebate amount
Cost-of-Living Payments (2022-23 and 2023-24)¶
Two successive packages, both modelled through the variable
cost_of_living_support_payment at gov/treasury/cost_of_living_support/.
The variable returns the sum of three independent strands depending
on which qualifying benefits the household receives:
| Strand | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | Qualifying benefits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Means-tested CoL Payment | £650 (two instalments) | £900 (three instalments) | Universal Credit, Pension Credit, Housing Benefit, income-based JSA / ESA, Income Support |
| Pensioner CoL Payment | £300 | £300 | Winter Fuel Payment recipients |
| Disability CoL Payment | £150 | £150 | DLA, PIP, Attendance Allowance, AFCS, IIDB, SDA, child / war disability pension |
From 2024-01-01 the parameter values are explicitly reset to zero so the one-off doesn’t extrapolate forward.
How PolicyEngine computes the payment¶
For each strand s ∈ {means_tested_households, pensioners, disabled}:
on_s = (sum of household's reported amounts in s.qualifying_benefits) > 0
strand_s = s.amount(period) * on_sTotal cost_of_living_support_payment = means_test_bonus + pensioner_bonus + disabled_bonus,
i.e. the strands stack — a pensioner on Pension Credit who also receives PIP
will collect all three payments. This matches the actual policy.
References¶
HMT/DWP, May 2022 cost-of-living support package announcement
DWP, Cost-of-Living Payments 2023-24 guidance (means-tested, pensioner and disability strands).
HMT, Energy Bills Support Scheme and Council Tax Energy Rebate.
House of Commons Library briefing CBP-9501 — Cost of Living Payments and the energy crisis.