Exploring social tariffs for energy

A social tariff that reduces the cost of fuel for low-income households could, in principle, more than halve the fuel poverty rate. This achieves much more than the existing cost-of-living payments. It would cost more than the existing cost-of-living mitigations being paid to social security recipients, but it would be much more cost-effective. The big question that remains to be answered is how to operationalise it? How can the energy companies and the government know which households have low incomes