The Government’s council tax checker tool crashed this afternoon within minutes of Chancellor John Healey’s announcement that 20million households will be eligible for £100 off energy bills this winter.
The Chancellor announced the one-off payment for every household in council tax bands A to D during his first Budget this afternoon.
The package, designed to help with the rising cost of energy fuelled by war in the Middle East, saw people rush to check the website to see if they qualify for the payment.
But such was the popularity, the site appeared to crash within minutes of the revelation.
An error message appeared after typing in a property’s postcode, reading: ‘Sorry, there is a problem with the service. Try again later.’
The £100 payment, at a total cost of £2.6billion, has been interpreted as Mr Healey’s ‘rabbit from the hat’ – which refers to the history of Chancellors producing a surprise, good-news measure in the Budget.
He said it would go straight into people’s bank accounts, as part of a raft of measures aimed at easing the pressure from energy bills.
Mr Healey told the Commons the devolved nations will also receive ‘their share’.
One of the Chancellor’s main priorities going into the Budget was to give hard-pressed families some ‘breathing space’, he told the Commons.
The government website crashed after the Chancellor’s announcement
John Healey produced a ‘rabbit from the hat’ when he revealed a £100 payment for households in the lowest tax bands
Mr Healey told the Commons of the £100 payments: ‘The Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland governments will receive their share of this funding.
‘I call on them to do the same, and give people of all nations in the UK breathing space on their energy bills this winter.’
The Chancellor said the UK was being battered by a global economic storm, with the Budget watchdog slashing its forecast for gross domestic product growth next year.
The public finances have also taken a battering, with the cost of borrowing soaring and the UK spending £14 billion more on debt interest this year, Mr Healey said.
The Chancellor told MPs: ‘Those are the storms we face. We can’t wish them away. We must choose the course we steer through them.’
Mr Healey hiked taxes on banks and gambling firms to provide ‘breathing space’ he promised for households and high street businesses.
He said the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had identified the war in the Middle East as the key driver in the economic forecasts.
But he promised ‘to steer us through the global economic storms today, to chart a new course for Britain in the years ahead, to give people fresh hope for Britain’s future’.
The support will reach 80 per cent of households in England, 83% of fuel-stressed households, and 88 per cent of those in the bottom three income deciles, the Government estimates.
Recipients can spend the cash landing in their bank account from January as they wish.
The Chancellor (pictured being embraced by the Prime Minister after the Budget) said the UK was being battered by a global economic storm, with the Budget watchdog slashing its forecast for gross domestic product growth next year
He also announced from the dispatch box the stripping of VAT from electricity bills would be extended until July 2027.
Earlier this morning, the government said it would overhaul standing charges on gas bills – a fixed charge paid by everyone – to be replaced with charges per unit used.
Consumer finance expert Martin Lewis, who had long campaigned for the measure, was invited into Number 11 Downing Street as the news broke.
However, the £108-a-year levies will not be removed until at least next year – and many bigger families will end up being worse off, as the costs will be moved on to unit costs for gas.
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