Energy firms offer £500m support to cushion blow of winter bills

Energy suppliers will spend £500m helping customers with their energy bills this winter, after the government helped broker a deal involving 12 of the biggest companies in the UK.

- Kiran Stacey

Suppliers will spend the money in a variety of ways, including putting credit on some customers' bills, writing off the debts of others and putting credit on prepayment meters, sources told the Guardian.

Ministers are hoping the deal will help to soften the impact of the decision to cut winter fuel payments for 10 million pensioners, which the government admitted on Tuesday would push 100,000 more people into relative poverty by the end of the decade.