Budget 2026: North-South divide in £100 energy support help hits Yorkshire
"Whether you get the £100 mostly comes down to what your home was worth 35 years ago, not what you earn or what you pay for energy,” one expert said.
John Healey’s £100 energy bill support payment will disproportionately help London over Yorkshire and the North as it uses council tax as the mechanism for a rebate, research has found.
The payment to be made to households in council tax bands A to D in January at a cost of £2.6bn was announced in the Budget.
Officials said Mr Healey chose to use this as the method to pay the £100 to get it into people’s pockets as quickly and easily as possible.
However, the outdated council tax system means this will likely disproportionately benefit people in London and the South East over the North.
Council tax bands were set in 1991, so areas which have seen rapid house price growth since then will still be in lower bands compared to the rest of the country.
Analysis for The Yorkshire Post by The Northern Powerhouse Partnership and the Gains App found that while a £270,000 house in Doncaster would not get the £100 payment, a property worth £820,000 would.
In Hull, a house worth around £340,000 would also miss out, while in North Yorkshire this could be around £380,000.
Chris Barnes, co-founder of the saving support Gains App, said: "Whether you get the £100 mostly comes down to what your home was worth 35 years ago, not what you earn or what you pay for energy and this is a reminder of why council tax banding is outdated."
Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said: “A lot has changed since the early nineties when council tax was first introduced yet it has never been re-valued since which means many even within Yorkshire pay more or less than others in same council area even if their houses may be worth the same today.
“In many areas of London properties have increased in value significantly more and should have seen their band increase but the failure of any government to reform the system leaves this as a property lottery that under charges those who have seen higher house price inflation rather than a tax related to real property value.
“To add insult to injury, a family in Doncaster in a house worth only a third of some Band D examples in Westminster will not receive the £100 announced by the Chancellor this week and those in London still will.
“If John Healey needed more evidence of the continuing unfairness of the council tax system then by using it to help target his help on energy bills he has had a significant reminder.
“We need to be considering a full revaluation and reform beyond the surcharge on most expensive properties his predecessor proposed.”
“It is hard to celebrate fiscal devolution progress whilst council tax reform is sadly still seemingly off the table.”
The Treasury said that almost nine in 10 of the poorest households would get the payment, and there was an additional £100m fund to help those that missed out.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham defended the plan, saying: “We’re very focused on giving families as much breathing space as we possibly can.
“Often with a budget, people would have come home from work and said, ‘Well, this doesn’t help me. It’s always for somebody else’.
“Well, if you’re going to give that support to people in council tax bands A to D, that gets to the vast majority of the country.
“It is help, real help that will land in people’s bank accounts in January.”
The York-based Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s lead analyst Sam Tims added: "With millions of households unable to heat their home and 70 per cent of people saying they need support to pay their energy bills this winter, it is right that the £100 payment is not limited to only some low-income families.
"But with bills set to rise by around a quarter in January, this sticking-plaster measure won't go far enough. Families pushed into debt from back-to-back energy crises will find little comfort in this limited support from government.
"What is needed is a structural intervention to bring down energy costs. An affordable energy guarantee would see every household receive a discount on their essential energy needs, with more for families that need greater support.
“As well as making energy bills more affordable, this approach would reduce inflation, and make us all more resilient the next time an energy crisis hits."