More than 54,000 households in Cheshire East would save £600 under Labour's energy plan claim some councillors.

New analysis published by Cheshire East Labour reveals that 54,033 homes would benefit from £600 to help with energy bills under Labour's plan.

The plan would be fully funded by a windfall tax on the bumper profits of oil and gas companies

The Conservative response to the cost of living crisis includes raising taxes – including National Insurance for all workers and businesses, and an energy bills loan which must be repaid.

Alift Harewood MBE, Labour Councillor for Macclesfield West and Ivy said:"Labour has a plan to deal with the cost of living crisis. We would scrap the National Insurance rise, and our plan to help with energy bills would mean 54,033 households in Cheshire East save £600.

"What's more, Labour councils keep council tax on average more than £300 lower than Tory councils.

"While the Conservatives are either standing aside or mired in scandal, Labour is on your side with real help to tackle the cost of living crisis."

What would Labour do?

1. Remove VAT on domestic energy bills for a year from April 2022: They would remove VAT on domestic energy bills for 12 months from April 2022. There are 28.5m households in the United Kingdom connected to the electricity grid (Source: FT). The saving they would each receive depends on their own domestic energy consumption and the price of domestic energy.

2. Expand and increase the Warm Homes Discount: currently only 2.2m households get the £140 Warm Homes Discount on their energy bills, despite 4.3m households being eligible to receive the payment, including low-income pensioners and working-age households with young children or disabilities.

3. Smooth the costs of supplier failure: Citizens Advice estimate that supplier failures since August 2021 will cost £2.6bn, or £94 per customer (Source: Citizens Advice). These costs will form part of the policy costs charged to bill payers and will be factored into the new energy price cap figure, scheduled to be announced on the 7th February. Ofgem are consulting on a mechanism to smooth the impact of current extraordinary SoLR lvy payments. To prevent these costs going onto bills in April, Labour say they would lend money to suppliers, reducing the level of the price cap by £94 for a typical customer and urgently begin work with the regulator and energy suppliers to set a schedule for how in future years these loans would be repaid and over what timescale, at no overall cost to the exchequer.

4. Contingency Fund: in addition to the above measures, they would allocate £600m to a contingency fund that could be used to support energy intensive businesses or for other purposes related to the energy price rise.