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Household electricity and gas bills in the UK will rise this winter after regulator Ofgem said it would raise the energy price cap by 10 per cent following rising wholesale costs.
Ofgem has set the cap for the October to December period at a level that would see the average household pay £1,717 a year, compared with the current £1,568 a year.
Friday’s decision is the first time the regulator has raised the cap since January and means bills remain hundreds of pounds higher than before. energy The crisis was sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
It comes after Prime Minister Rachel Reeves announced last month £1.5bn cut to winter fuel payments to better-off pensioners as part of an emergency savings boost to make up for the £22bn financial hole she says she inherited from the Conservatives.
Jonathan Brearley, CEO of Gemstone“We know that this price cap increase will be extremely difficult for many households,” said Mr.
“Anyone who is struggling to pay their bills should ensure they are accessing all the benefits they are entitled to, particularly pension credit, and contact their energy company for further help and support.”
Mike Thornton, chief executive of consultancy Energy Saving Trust, has urged the government to tackle “persistently high energy prices” with energy efficiency measures.
Mathew Lawrence, director of the Common Wealth consultancy, said the rise was “a brutal reminder that the cost of living crisis cannot be separated from our continued reliance on volatile global fossil fuel markets”.
The price cap, introduced in 2019, places a limit on how much energy companies can charge households under default tariffs for each unit of gas and electricity consumed. The price is reset every three months to reflect changes in wholesale prices and applies to the bills of 27 million households.
Before winter 2021, Ofgem set the cap at a level where the typical household would pay less than £1,100 a year.
But the average bill hit a record high of £4,059 in January last year as wholesale prices soared following the Russian invasion, forcing the previous Conservative government to introduce a subsidy scheme.
This is a developing story.
