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Belfast Live
Belfast Live
National
Lauren Harte

Cost-of-living crisis: SDLP seek recall of Assembly to address growing energy costs

The SDLP has tabled a petition to recall the Assembly to address the cost of living crisis.

The move follows UK government plans to help with spiralling energy costs for homes and businesses in Northern Ireland.

An energy price cap has been announced for homes here from November, while home heating oil customers are to get a one-off payment of £100.

Read more: Energy bill support package for Northern Ireland - what you need to know

The Government has also said Northern Ireland businesses will benefit from an energy cap on an equivalent basis to a scheme announced for the rest of the UK.

The SDLP has already published a proposal to provide all households with 1,000 litres of home heating oil as a matter of urgency.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood MP said his party will now table a petition to recall the Assembly in response to the growing energy cost crisis and what he called "the insulting response to it" from UK government and Stormont ministers.

The powersharing institutions were collapsed earlier this year by the DUP in protest against the post-Brexit Northern Ireland Protocol.

Mr Eastwood said the counter offer from London ministers of £100 to get tens of thousands of households through the most severe energy cost crisis in living memory is "grossly insulting".

The Foyle MP added: "Without a significant intervention, people will die needlessly this winter. It is galling that the British government’s response to that crisis is to offer three weeks of heat for the majority of people in the North.

"A warm home isn’t a luxury, it’s a matter of basic human dignity."

Meanwhile, Stormont's Finance Minister Conor Murphy has said the government plans to help with spiralling energy costs here do not provide the support that homes and businesses need.

The Sinn Féin minister said no clarity had been provided to businesses about when they would receive assistance with bills.

Mr Murphy said: "This doesn't go far enough given the huge increase in energy costs in the last year. Seventy per cent of households who use home heating oil will find the news that they will get a mere £100 of support for their fuel bills this winter insufficient."

However DUP MP Sammy Wilson welcomed the announcement and said his party has been working to ensure people in Northern Ireland get help this winter.

Mr Wilson said: "Whilst the Sinn Fein Finance Minister was whinging, the DUP has been working. Our engagement with the Government both in Westminster and through Stormont departments is ensuring Northern Ireland households will get help this winter."

Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg announced the energy price cap for homes in Northern Ireland on Wednesday. He said households in Northern Ireland will be offered the same level of gas and electricity bill support as an equivalent scheme in Great Britain.

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