1.These draft Regulations propose changes to the legislation underpinning the Energy Intensive Industries (EII) Exemption Scheme, which offers an exemption for eligible companies to receive a discount from their electricity costs to address high energy costs and potential market failures. According to the Department for Business and Trade, EII covers high electricity-using businesses in key foundation industries and industries that are essential to critical national infrastructure and/or form part of the supply chain for other important sectors. EII sectors include steel, paper, plastics, chemicals, cement and glass. The instrument proposes two changes to the eligibility criteria: (i) to give companies applying for the exemption an opportunity to exclude two years (2020 and 2021) of the last five years’ accounts to reflect the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic; and (ii) to allow new businesses to apply with one quarter rather than two quarters of trading data, making it easier for them to access relief.