Millions on low-incomes to get cost of living payments as Rachel Reeves reveals £1billion Autumn Budget boost
MILLIONS of hard-up households will get cost of living payments through a major government fund.
Rachel Reeves confirmed in her Budget today the Household Support Fund (HSF) will be extended from next year.
The Chancellor said the government will pump a further £1billion into the fund that helps those on a low income and benefits.
Reeves added part of the £1billion pot will be offered to councils to issue Discretionary Housing payments.
The Chancellor said: “We will provide £1billion from next year to extend the Household Support Fund and Discretionary Housing Payments, to help those facing financial hardship with the cost of essentials.”
The latest round of the Household Support Fund is worth £421million to councils in England and is due to close at the end of March 2025.
Budget documents reveal the extension will apply to the 2025/26 financial year.
However it is not clear at this stage exactly when in 2025 and 2026 the fund will open and close.
Nor is it clear how much of the pot will be allocated to councils for Discretionary Housing Payments.
We have asked the Treasury to confirm both these points and will update the story when we have heard back.
Richard Lane from debt charity StepChange, welcomed the extension of the “vital” Household Support Fund.
“In the long term we’d like to see the government implement an effective and permanent local crisis support scheme,” he added.
The “trick and treat” Halloween package unveiled by Rachel Reeves today included:
- A freeze to fuel duty for a 15th consecutive year in a win for The Sun’s Keep It Down campaign
- A penny off a pint by cutting draught beer duty, but raising booze taxes on other drinks
- A gloomy forecast of sluggish growth in a blow to Labour’s flagship mission
- A stamp duty rise for second-home buyers of two percentage points
- A pay rise for millions as the minimum wage was increased by £1,400 a year
- A hike to a packet of cigarettes as smoking duties were raised
- A new tax on vapes ahead of the looming ban on disposable e-cigs
- Higher taxes on air passenger duty for private jets that hits the wealthy
- A benefits crackdown with Ms Reeves telling jobless Brits to “get back to work”
- An increase to the state pension of £473 next year through the triple lock
- An inheritance tax raid through freezing the rates people pay
- An increase to the Carer’s Allowance to give cash to 60,000 more carers
What is the Household Support Fund?
The Household Support Fund was first launched in 2021 and designed to help those struggling with the cost of living.
It has been extended multiple times since with the latest round ending in March next year.
Generally, a pot of money is distributed among councils in England who then decide how to allocate it.
That means what you are entitled to varies based on where you live.
However, help is mostly offered to those on a low income, benefits or who is classed as vulnerable.
You may get a direct cash payment to your bank account or might receive vouchers to spend at the supermarket or on energy bills.
Some eligible households have to apply for help while others will receive the help automatically.
What are Discretionary Housing payments?
A Discretionary Housing Payment is a payment you may receive from your local authority to help with housing costs.
You can typically only get one if you receive Housing Benefit or the Housing Costs element of Universal Credit and live in England, Wales or Scotland.
They are also available to residents in Northern Ireland but paid at a different rate.
You can get a Discretionary Housing Payment regardless of your age but you must be old enough to receive either of the two qualifying benefits.
The share of the £1billion being allocated to councils to hand out extra Discretionary Housing Payments is only for authorities in England and Wales.
BRITAIN’S MOST MEMORABLE BUDGETS
Today is the first Labour budget for 14 years – and the first ever to be delivered by a female Chancellor.
Brits are bracing for a raft of tax hikes as Rachel Reeves tries to plug the “£22billion black hole” she says she’s found in government accounts.
Here are five other budgets which have caused a stir over the years.
1979 – Geoffrey Howe, Conservative
Margaret Thatcher’s Chancellor Geoffrey Howe slashed both the top rate of income tax and the standard rate.
He also doubled VAT – shifting the tax burden from income to consumption in a huge change for Brits.
Howe also eased controls on foreign exchange in a bid to control inflation.
The budget signalled a massive break from the last Labour government and set the pattern for decades to come.
1988 – Nigel Lawson, Conservative
Nigel Lawson (dad to domestic goddess Nigella) massively slashed income tax again.
The deputy Commons speaker twice cleared the chamber amid noisy protests from Labour MPs slamming the tax cuts.
Lawson also set off a property bonanza by announcing an end to double mortgage tax relief for couples buying homes.
1993 – Norman Lamont, Conservative
In March 1993 the economy was still reeling from Black Wednesday, when the pound crashed out of the European exchange rate mechanism.
Lamont announced tax rises including VAT on domestic gas and electricity.
Later that year Lamont’s successor Ken Clarke froze personal tax allowance and brought in stealth taxes on insurance and plane passengers.
The Lamont and Clarke budgets marked the end of the Tories’s scything tax cuts – and set the stage for Labour’s return to office in 1997.
2002 – Gordon Brown, Labour
Brown raised national insurance by a penny on the pound to fund higher spending on the NHS.
The future PM had fretted over a possible backlash from voters who had re-elected Labour in 2001.
But he managed to pull off the largest rise in health spending in the history of the NHS.
2009 – Alistair Darling, Labour
Labour’s last budget before today came amid the credit crunch and soaring unemployment.
Darling ramped up taxes and borrowing in a bid to fill up draining Treasury coffers.
Tory leader David Cameron blasted Labour’s ‘utter mess’ – and was in power a year later.
2022 – Kwasi Kwarteng, Conservative
Kwarteng unveiled his economic package less than a month after becoming Liz Truss’s Chancellor.
Technically, it was a fiscal statement rather than a budget – but it turned out to be just as seismic.
Rising Tory star Kwarteng announced £45billion in tax cuts including a drop in all rates of income tax.
Markets took frights and the pound went into freefall before the Bank of England waded in to stop a run on UK pension funds.
Mortgage rates soared and Kwarteng was out of the job just three weeks later.