{"id":896566,"date":"2026-04-15T21:47:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T21:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/896566\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T21:47:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T21:47:18","slug":"chancellor-to-cut-electricity-bills-for-thousands-more-uk-firms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/896566\/","title":{"rendered":"Chancellor to cut electricity bills for thousands more UK firms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Government has expanded plans to cut electricity bills for thousands of UK manufacturing firms as the conflict in the Middle East pushes energy costs higher.<\/p>\n

Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the action to support firms after warning over the lingering impact of the Iran war on inflation and economic growth.<\/p>\n

Ms Reeves, who is in Washington for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) spring meetings, said the plan will help UK businesses compete and create jobs despite the uncertain economic backdrop.<\/p>\n

\"Chancellor Chancellor Rachel Reeves (Yui Mok\/PA) \u00b7 Yui Mok <\/p>\n

Last summer, the Government announced a plan to cut electricity bills by up to 25% for more than 7,000 UK businesses, as part of a 10-year industrial strategy.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, it revealed plans to expand this to cover 10,000 firms.<\/p>\n

The British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme (BICS) will cut costs by up to \u00a340 per megawatt-hour from 2027 by exempting businesses from certain extra charges that currently support green energy and back-up power supply systems.<\/p>\n

It said it plans to roll out an additional one-off payment in 2027 to an extra 3,000 businesses, including companies in the automotive and aerospace, steel, and pharmaceuticals sectors.<\/p>\n

The Government said it will also cover the support firms would have received if the BICS had been in place from this month.<\/p>\n

The BICS scheme is expected to be worth up to \u00a3600 million per year from next April.<\/p>\n

Ms Reeves said: \u201cThis Government has the right plan for the economy: backing British industry, cutting electricity costs, and building a stronger, more resilient future.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s announcement will cut energy bills for over 10,000 manufacturers, helping businesses to compete, win and create good jobs across the country, and to deliver our modern industrial strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Business Secretary Peter Kyle said: \u201cWe are a government of action, and when global instability puts businesses under pressure we\u2019ll always do what\u2019s needed to support them and ensure Britain\u2019s resilience.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy extending the reach of BICS by 40%, we\u2019re acting decisively to tackle the number one issue that businesses face head-on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Government has expanded plans to cut electricity bills for thousands of UK manufacturing firms as the conflict…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[252820,748,252822,393,4884,12705,252821,1144,619,712,252819,22580,16,15,1764],"class_list":["post-896566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","category-uk","category-united-kingdom","tag-bics","tag-britain","tag-british-industrial-competitiveness-scheme","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-international-monetary-fund","tag-manufacturing-firms","tag-northern-ireland","tag-rachel-reeves","tag-scotland","tag-support-firms","tag-the-government","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wales"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}