Households on prepayment meters will not pay more than those on direct debits, chancellor to promise
Households on prepayment meters will no longer pay more for their energy than those on direct debits, the chancellor is expected to announce this week.
The “prepayment meter penalty” will end in July, saving more than four million households around £45 a year at a cost of £200m.
It will be managed through changes to the government’s energy price guarantee and, after this ends in April 2024, energy regulator Ofgem will be asked for ways the change can be made permanent.
Ahead of his spring budget this week, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said: “It is clearly unfair that those on prepayment meters pay more than others.
“We are going to put an end to that.”
Energy suppliers have said prepayment meters cost more to manage – supplying vouchers and collecting payments, for example – blaming this for the higher prices.
But most of the households on prepayment meters are vulnerable or low income, meaning the higher tariff and inability to spread the cost across the year are hitting those who can least afford to pay.
The chancellor will also be announcing a number of changes to benefits to get more of the sick, disabled and welfare claimants back into work.
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The data behind prepayment meters
The system used to assess eligibility for sickness benefits, for example, will be axed, allowing claimants to receive benefits after they return to work.
Over 50s will be targeted with more skills training, while parents will be given more help with childcare costs, which are among the most expensive in the world.
Mr Hunt will raise the maximum universal credit childcare allowance – which has been frozen at £646 a month per child for years – by several hundred pounds.
The Treasury has not given the exact amount.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt
The government will also start paying parents on universal credit childcare support upfront, rather than in arrears.
Government figures show that more than half a million workers have vanished from the workforce since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is among the factors that have been stifling productivity and economic growth.
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Syma Cullasy-Aldridge, chief campaigns director at the Confederation of British Industry, said firms are struggling to fill more than one million job vacancies in the economy.
She said it was “absolutely right” that childcare support for those on universal credit will be paid upfront, but called for a review into childcare “to ensure it works for everyone”, as well as reform of the apprenticeship levy to help over-50s back into work.
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Is childcare limiting the economy?
The TUC said changes such as greater childcare support are “long overdue” and welcomed “an end to assessments that cause anxiety instead of helping people achieve their aspirations”.
But, the union’s general secretary Paul Nowak said proposals to increase the use of sanctions are “worrying”.
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Scope’s director of strategy James Taylor said: “To be successful these proposals must lead to a more person-centred system that offers specialist, tailored and flexible back to work support.
“Those that want to work should be supported. But for some, that’s not an option and disabled people shouldn’t be forced into unsuitable work.”
Labour’s shadow work and pension’s secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “Over recent months, Labour has outlined welfare reforms to get Britain back to work and now the Tories are following our lead.”
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves are among the guests on the Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme on Sky News from 8.30am today.
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
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The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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Ex-IDF spokesperson: ‘No distinction between military and civilians’
‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
Read more:
Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza
British surgeons on life in Gaza
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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