Business Secretary Grant Shapps insists Northern Ireland households will receive energy support cash

Business Secretary Grant Shapps has again given an assurance that "everybody in Northern Ireland will receive the energy support payments, however, he failed to say when.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where people are still to receive the energy support payments.

Mr Shapps said the lack of a functioning Stormont government and the difference in the energy market had complicated the distribution of the support.

"In Northern Ireland, there's a different process," he told ITV's Good Morning Britain.

"A different set-up in the energy market. Normally it would be handled by its own devolved administration.

"As you know, there isn't a government in place in Northern Ireland. What we're having to do is find ways of working around what is quite a complex energy situation in Northern Ireland.

"However - and that is the £400 - we will make sure it gets to them this winter."

Presenter Susanna Reid called on the minister to find a mechanism to pay people in Northern Ireland after one viewer told the programme they had heard it may not arrive until January or February next year.

"There isn't a mechanism in the same way" the Business Secretary said.

"Partly due to the government situation there but also because the energy market is set up in a completely different way in Northern Ireland.

"In the UK, we've been able to pay that money back through people's energy bills that, for a whole range of technical reasons, hasn't been possible in Northern Ireland. But we are working through the system to be able to resolve that.

"However, in the meantime, people are getting the energy price guarantee. This is a much bigger sum of money..."

Mr Schapps was pressed again on when people would receive their support payment given the skyrocketing bills they were faced with.

Ms Reid asked when Scarlett, a mother-of-four who told GMB of her struggles with affording to heat her home, would receive her payment.

"She will and everybody in Northern Ireland will," Mr Shapps replied.

Energy bills are capped at 34p per unit of electricity and 10.3p per unit of gas between October and the end of March. The £400 support comes on top of this cap.

From April the Government’s cap on bills will become less generous for households.

The Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy has been approached for comment.

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