UK government makes 400 new energy bill payments

It follows the two payments totalling 650 that have already been made to more than eight million low-income households.

The first instalment of 326 was paid between 14 and 31 July. The second instalment of 324 should have reached those eligible by the end of December.

The recipients' bank accounts have a national insurance number, followed by DWP COLP, as will be the case for the new payments.

The measures are part of the government's help to help people with the soaring cost of living, which is rising at a near-record pace. The 400 energy bill help for all UK residents ends in April.

Charities and poverty campaigners have said that the payments don't go far enough to mitigate the effects of increasing prices.

Stuart Bretherton, Fuel Poverty Action spokesman Stuart Bretherton told the BBC that the government has been recycling funding announcements, and that it just mops around the edges of what people are really facing.

A spokesman for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: "We know that times are hard, and that is why the Government is covering half of the average household's energy bill."