Dear Editor,

So, let me just get this straight...... The Treasury have decided that in October we are all to receive a £200 so-called ‘rebate’ on our energy bills. Some people are calling it a ‘loan’. Others use the technical term ‘compulsory negative levy’. Whatever you call it, I gather that this £200 levy is mandatory. Even if you wanted to, you cannot opt out. Which in itself is beyond outrageous that we citizens have zero choice in the matter.

From April 2023, you then begin repaying that levy at a rate of £40 a year for the following five years. On top of that, some of those who do not receive the £200 credit to their energy bills will still have to repay at the same rate and timeframe as everyone else.

So if, say, you are a student living with your parents at the time the levy is applied, and you then move into your own place soon thereafter, your energy bill will include the £40 repayments - even though the levy was originally applied to your parents’ energy bill for the family home you were living in at the time.

Presumably the Treasury are hedging their bets that energy prices will begin to fall come April 2023. However, if global gas prices remain at eye watering levels, households will have to cough up huge monthly direct debits whilst concurrently making levy repayments.

If all of this is true, can anyone out there with perhaps a brain larger than mine and/or a PhD in Economics explain to me two things. Since when did any government of the day have compulsory sway over the manner in which households choose to run their personal finances, including the acceptance or otherwise of an interest-free ‘rebate’?

Secondly, how on earth can it be morally justifiable to quite literally compel someone to repay £200 that they have not even received? Either the Treasury have taken leave of their senses, or this country has transmogrified from democracy to autocracy. Or have I just simply got all of my facts wrong...?

Erika Stone,

Abbatts Close,

Ludgershall

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