Over the past few months many of our members have been raising concerns with us about rising costs – whether this is the increase in fuel charges, along with supply costs for goods such as food.
Our management team have raised this with those in positions of power locally, regionally and nationally, to ask for more financial support to help businesses such as energy subsidies, reduced VAT and further business rates relief.
Unfortunately, nationally there is not a lot of support which businesses can access, although we are still raising it where possible and gathering views of businesses to feed into these conversations.
Local Support
Locally, North Tyneside Council recognise the impact of the rising cost of living on businesses across the borough.
Although the Council cannot help with rising costs, energy bills, supply chains etc for businesses, there are a number of resources, support and in some cases grants available to assist your business to reduce its carbon footprint and become more sustainable.
https://my.northtyneside.gov.uk/category/1605/green-and-environmental-support
National Advice & Guidance
Your energy supplier can help if you are having difficulties managing your microbusiness energy bills. You can get other financial support too. Your options will depend on your situation.
Ofgem recommend that you agree a business energy payment plan with your energy provider, check business finance schemes and grants and get business debt advice.
You can find more information on their dedicated page here
Government Finance and Support
Energy Bill Relief Scheme
New support businesses and public sector organisations was unveiled on Wednesday 21 September. This scheme is in place until 31 March 2023. After this date, the Energy Bill Discount Scheme will come into place (see below).
The scheme will be available to everyone on a non-domestic contract including:
- businesses
- voluntary sector organisations, such as charities
- public sector organisations such as schools, hospitals and care homes
who are:
- on existing fixed price contracts that were agreed on or after 1 April 2022
- signing new fixed price contracts
- on deemed / out of contract or variable tariffs
- on flexible purchase or similar contracts
The government will provide a discount on your gas and electricity unit prices. To calculate your discount, the estimated wholesale portion of the unit price you would be paying this winter will be compared to a baseline ‘government supported price’ which is lower than currently expected wholesale prices this winter.
For all non-domestic energy users in Great Britain this government supported price has been set at:
- £211 per megawatt hour (MWh) for electricity
- £75 per MWh for gas
For more information and the eligibility please visit the Gov.uk website here
Energy Bill Discount Scheme
For eligible non-domestic customers who have a contract with a licensed energy supplier, the government have announced the following support:
- From 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, all eligible non-domestic customers who have a contract with a licensed energy supplier will see a unit discount of up to £6.97/MWh automatically applied to their gas bill and a unit discount of up to £19.61/MWh applied to their electricity bill.
- This will be subject to a wholesale price threshold, set with reference to the support provided for domestic consumers, of £107/MWh for gas and £302/MWh for electricity. This means that businesses experiencing energy costs below this level will not receive support.
- Customers do not need to apply for their discount. As with the current scheme, suppliers will automatically apply reductions to the bills of all eligible non-domestic customers.
General Business Support
There are also 42 business support and finance schemes available in the North East to support your business, more information can be found here
Your Views
If you would like to be involved in this in the future, please email [email protected]
