Rishi Sunak is not helping his reputation as a tax hiker

It was only three months ago that Chancellor Rishi Sunak was announcing a £9 billion support package to help people with their energy bills – which totalled £350 worth of support for most households. At the time there were calls for the Chancellor to go further, but he explained that he could not shield the public from every price hike, or pretend adjustment didn’t need to take place. It would be ‘wrong and dishonest,’ he said.

Those appeals have not worked out. Households are feeling poorer and poorer as prices continue to shoot up month-on-month. So Sunak has announced today a staggering £15 billion support package, changing and adding to the schemes he laid out in February.

The headlines include doubling the energy bills discount – administered through an Energy Bills rebate – from £200 to £400 for every household. He has also scrapped the loan aspect of the rebate – the original scheme would have seen households repay the discount in instalments over five years, turning it into a grant instead.

On top of these updates, the Chancellor announced £9 billion worth of new spending which will come in the form of direct, one-off payments, as follows:

• A £650 payment to the 8 million low-income households who have the state ‘supporting their cost of living through the welfare system’.
• A