A Tory minister was laughed at during a Question Time debate after he attempted to defend a £200 loan offered to help people with the cost of living crisis.
Greg Hands, Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, struggled to convince the audience in Canterbury that a £200 discount to tackle the cost of living crisis wasn’t just a loan.
Families are struggling to make ends meet after the energy cap was hiked at the end of last week with many choosing between heating homes or eating.
The Tory MP was probed on the BBC show about what Boris Johnson' s government was doing to help people get through the tough period.
He referred to a £9 billion package that Chancellor Rishi Sunak revealed last February where a one-off repayable £200 discount and a rebate on council tax bills would help tackle the £700-a-year rise in average household’s energy bills in April.
On the show Hands said the £200 discount was not just a loan.
He said: "The Chancellor of the Exchequer launched a really important package in February, just two months ago to deal with the rise in bills, not deal with it completely, but actually £9 billion set aside, a £200 discount on energy bills, a £150 discount on council tax, additional funds to make sure the most vulnerable are able ... give them assistance in paying their energy.”
Presenter Fiona Bruce jumped in saying: "£200 is of course a loan?"
Hands replied: "It is not a loan, it is a discount which you have to pay it back in the form of a levy."
Bruce asked again: "But you have to pay it back, it sounds like a loan?"
He replied: "Not the individual, it gets taken back at the point that it is levied."
With laughs and shouts from the audience, Bruce said to them: "You are all shouting, what are you all shouting?"
They yelled back: "It’s a loan."
Hands added: "It’s taken back through a levy, it is not a loan because it does not create an obligation on the individual to repay, it is actually a levy on the price point."
You can watch the awkward exchange here.
"It is put on the price point, not on the individual. The individual does not have an obligation to repay."
Asked if people didn't have to repay if they didn't want he responded with members of the audience chuckling: "No I’m not saying that."
Emily Thornberry, Labour MP and Shadow Attorney General interrupted: "So if you don’t heat, if you don’t have any heating afterwards then you don’t pay it back."
"It is not an obligation," said Hands.
"These are the important things which have been announced to help people with bills. But that is different to the long term strategy that we have launched today with renewables, nuclear and making sure we are not increasing our imports of oil and gas."
Scotland received an additional £290 million from the UK Government to help people with their energy bills.
The cash was on top of the £200 reduction to energy bills for customers in Scotland, England and Wales in October.
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