The £100 Household Energy Payment will reach recipients' bank accounts from January and can be spent however they wish, PA reports. The January date had previously been reported only by the Mirror.
PA also carries government estimates that the payment reaches 80% of households in England, 83% of fuel-stressed households and 88% of households in the bottom three income deciles.
Those figures run against the Resolution Foundation, which had called the payment "badly targeted". They are the government's own estimates and have not been independently checked.
The payment goes to about 20 million households in council tax bands A to D and costs £2.6bn, according to PA and Energy Live News. The Chancellor, John Healey, said in his Budget statement that it would "take the pressure off in the coldest months".
A wire summary in the Independent gives the bands as A to C. That conflicts with the A to D given by Healey and PA and appears to be an error.