THE Chancellor is considering proposals for a new council tax rebate after a growing backlash for not giving more help to poorer households as the UK heads for its biggest drop in living standards since at least the 1950s.

Rishi Sunak is reported to be already weighing up another multibillion-pound package to help shield households from a further surge in fuel bills this autumn. 

The energy price cap will jump from about £1,300 to nearly £2,000 on Friday and could rise again to £3,000 in October. 

Press reports that more measures are to be announced later this year come just days since Mr Sunak announced a package of tax and duty cuts that was widely dismissed as too limited and underestimated the scale of the problem facing households.

One leading think tank the Resolution Foundation warned the Chancellor's mini-Budget will drive 1.3m people – including 500,000 children – below the poverty line this year - as the UK faces the biggest fall in living standards since the 1950s.

READ MORE: SNP told to consider introducing local inheritance tax to fight poverty

Mr Sunak's measures set out on Wednesday including a 5p cut per litre to fuel duty and a rise in the threshold for paying NICs to £12,570 from July, bringing it into line with the personal allowance for tax. He also pledged that the basic rate of tax will fall by a penny to 19p by 2024.

However, he faced criticism for failing to help those on very low income or on benefits and came under fire for what tax analysts said looked like a plan to hold back money for giveaways to voters ahead of a general election.

The Government will uprate benefits by 3.1% in April although the inflation rate is expected to average nearly 8% over the year.

Mr Sunak’s first measure to address the cost of living crisis in February gave a rebate of £150 to those living in properties in council tax bands A to D, and a £200 reprieve on energy bills, to be paid back over five years.

The council tax rebate was passed on by the Scottish Government to people north of the Border with further measures, including an increase to the Scottish Child Payment for families on low incomes, also announced in Holyrood.

READ MORE: Poor Scots will have to give up a day of food a week to manage cost of living crisis

UK Government sources have signalled that a second council tax rebate could be more generous.

Labour today branded the Chancellor "Mr Tax" as they accused him of "acting in his own interest" rather than those of people in the UK.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Jon Ashworth gave the nickname to Mr Sunak while warning that pensioners have been "cutting back on hot meals" and "forgoing hot showers" as they cannot afford the cost.

Mr Ashworth told Sophy Ridge On Sunday on Sky News: "Rishi Sunak absolutely had more room for manoeuvre in this spring statement and mini budget, but rather than acting in the interests of the British people, he was playing games.

"He was acting in his own interest because he thinks by offering an income tax cut in two years that'll help him politically with Conservative MPs if there's a leadership contest or that'll fit the Tory election grid.

"I don't believe that putting 1.3 million people into poverty because you're imposing a very severe real-terms cut to universal credit, you're imposing the biggest cut to the pension in 50 years, is fair."

Mr Ashworth said Mr Sunak should have imposed a "windfall tax" on the profits of oil and gas companies to generate funds to help struggling families and pensioners with energy bills.

He said: "He chose not to do that. Instead, he's imposed these very punishing tax rises, these very severe real-terms cuts to the pension and support like universal credit, and he's expecting people to be grateful because two years down the road he's saying there's going to be an income tax cut even though that income tax cut nowhere near offsets the 15 tax rises that he has imposed on the British people, £3,000 extra per household if you do a rough and ready calculation.

"He is a tax-rising Chancellor, he is Mr Tax and it's the British people who are paying the price."

Treasury minister Simon Clarke told MPs high inflation "will be reflected" in the benefits uprating figures for April 2023, which will be calculated in September, if the current forecasts come to fruition.

But Mr Ashworth suggested the Government should have brought forward some of the increases rather than wait until 2023.

He did not give an exact figure when repeatedly pressed on BBC's Sunday Morning about how much Labour would have increased benefits.

Mr Ashworth said: "Rachel Reeves, ahead of the mini budget last week, said the Government should be looking at bringing forward an increase in the pension and an increase in support like universal credit.

"Rishi Sunak refused to do that. I don't know if that's because he's callous or incompetent, or maybe it's because he's not going to honour that increase in benefits and the pension this September."

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said it would be irresponsible to say "job done" by Mr Sunak over the cost-of-living crisis.

He told the same programme: "I think he will continue to keep an eye on this, it's only right.

"It's irresponsible for me to say 'job done' because energy prices are volatile, inflation remains high, so it would be absolutely irresponsible to say 'job done'.

"But I think £22 billion, in one year, of help when you've just spent £400 billion is the right thing to do."