£600 energy support payment for Northern Ireland: DUP and UK government blame each other as delays continue

Energy bill support payments worth £400 per household were announced by the government in May and began paying out in Great Britain in October but the wait continues in Northern Ireland.

A further £200 has been promised to every household to replace a subsidy scheme for those connected to the gas network elsewhere in the UK, since the overwhelming majority of homes here are heated with oil.

A row over who is to blame for the delays has been rumbling on for months and, on Wednesday in the House of Commons, the energy minister Graham Stuart sought to pin the blame squarely on the absence of a powersharing government at Stormont.

The Northern Ireland Executive has not functioned since DUP ministers withdrew in February in protest at the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The DUP, meanwhile, has accused the government of using the delays to put pressure on the party over its refusal to allow an Executive to be formed.

Mr Stuart, responding to a query about the energy payments from DUP MP Carla Lockhart, said: “Of course energy is devolved and this scheme should have been administered by the Executive in Northern Ireland. That's why, in Great Britain, my department has been working since February to deal with what is a very challenging and complex task. We don't live in a centralised, database society and standing up this support has proved challenging.

It wasn't until August that the Executive asked HMG [Her Majesty’s Government], and thus my department, to take on responsibility for this which is one of the reasons why we have been behind.”

Ms Lockhart, however, accused the government of “shifting the goalposts” in a statement issued following the exchange in Parliament.

The Upper Bann MP said people in Northern Ireland need a “firm commitment” from the Government that the payments would be issued before Christmas.

She said: “Whilst across GB, households have received their Energy Bills Support payment, my constituents and people right across Northern Ireland have not.

“£400 has been dangled in front of them but remains beyond their grasp. The promise of an additional £200 in recognition of our dependence on heating oil also remains unpaid.

“The previous prime minister assured the people of Northern Ireland that a payment would be issued in November. Today, November draws to a close and no payment.”

She said “what we get from the Government is delay, doubt, different stories as to the type of scheme as each day passes”, adding: “It is not good enough. We need a firm commitment from the Government that this payment will be issued before Christmas.”

Speaking to the News Letter, meanwhile, DUP MLA Edwin Poots said: “It is without doubt being used to put pressure on the DUP, and that’s wrong. The money that has went out in Scotland and Wales has went out directly, it hasn’t been done through the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly. So that is very, very transparent.”