Category Archives: Energy bills

Next PM could face £23bn autumn spend to cover £900 rise in energy bills

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Energy prices have soared above prediction and subsidies will require significant further spending

Ministers could face an additional £23bn price tag for covering extra household energy costs of £900 this autumn, rising to £90bn next year, a new paper by the Institute for Government has found.

The paper, looking at the options for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak in No 10, also warned the government should plan for prolonged rises in energy bills by going a lot further in making public appeals to use less gas – for example by informing consumers about the cost savings from turning down thermostats – and in committing to building more energy efficient homes to help protect consumers.

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UK customers face ‘catastrophic winter’ as energy costs soar, says EDF retail boss

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Half of UK households could be in fuel poverty by January unless government steps in, says managing director for customers

The UK faces a “dramatic and catastrophic winter for customers” as energy prices soar, according to a stark warning from the head of EDF Energy’s retail business.

Philippe Commaret, the energy firm’s managing director for customers, called for extra government intervention, including help for households to insulate their homes and a VAT cut for small businesses as prices jump to record levels.

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Recall parliament early to tackle soaring energy bills, Labour urges PM

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Letter to Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak calls for action to help households before price cap rises

Labour has urged Boris Johnson to recall parliament next week so the government can offer more help to struggling households before the announcement of the new energy price cap.

The opposition has written to the prime minister and both Tory leadership candidates warning that it is a “crucial deadline” for government action to tackle soaring energy bills, after inflation topped 10% for the first time in 40 years.

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Two-thirds of UK families could be in fuel poverty by January, research finds

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Estimated 45m people will struggle to pay energy bills this winter with predicted rises in price cap

Two-thirds of all UK households will be trapped in fuel poverty by January with planned government support leaving even middle-income households struggling to pay their bills, according to research.

It shows 18 million families, the equivalent of 45 million people, will be left trying to make ends meet after further predicted rises in the energy price cap in October and January.

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Labour to push energy price cap policy in campaign blitz

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Party aims to get out message on plan to tackle cost of living before new Conservative PM enters No 10

Labour is planning a campaigning blitz in order to take ownership of its new energy price cap policy in case the next Tory leader bows to pressure and cancels the 80% rise expected in October.

Keir Starmer has vowed that his party “wouldn’t let people pay a penny more” on their gas and electricity bills this winter, proposing freezing the price cap at current levels and preventing the average household bill from reaching £3,600.

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Labour announces plan to freeze energy price cap with reinforced windfall tax

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Keir Starmer says people won’t pay ‘a penny more’ and that plan would reduce inflation

Keir Starmer has put a beefed-up £8bn windfall tax on energy company profits at the heart of a new plan to stop people having to pay “a penny more” on fuel bills this winter.

The Labour leader confirmed that under his plan the energy price cap would be frozen at the current level, meaning that an expected 80% rise in October – taking an average household bill to about £3,600 – would not go ahead.

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Tory leadership: Sunak frustrated government attempts to realise benefits of Brexit, Truss allies claim – UK politics live

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Latest updates: foreign secretary’s supporters accuse former chancellor of resisting changes to EU regulation as sixth hustings looms

Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, has used an article in today’s Guardian to propose that the government should halt the increases in the energy price cap planned for later this year and next year and, if necessary, take energy companies into public ownership to ensure that they keep prices down.

Alongside the Lib Dem plan, with which it has some similarities (they also want a price cap freeze, and more money raised through a windfall tax), it is the most radical and ambitious proposal on the table to tackle the energy bills crisis.

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Sunak accuses Truss of major U-turn after she says she will do ‘all I can to help struggling households’ with fuel bills – UK politics live

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Tory leadership contender says rival had previously dismissed direct support as ‘handouts’

Suella Braverman, the attorney general, is giving a speech to the Policy Exchange thinktank on equalities and rights. There is a live feed here.

In a preview of the speech published in the Daily Telegraph, Braverman says she wants to clarify the law on trans rights as it applies in schools. She says:

When it comes to gender-questioning children, we should always have compassion. At the same time, our compassion should never blind us to the harm it is possible to do to children by misplaced affirmation. Many schools and teachers believe – incorrectly – that they are under an absolute legal obligation to treat children who are gender questioning according to the preference of the child. Many are scared of the consequences of not doing so.

I want to make it clear that it is possible, within the law, for schools to refuse to use the preferred opposite-sex pronouns of a child.

The UK and partners have condemned in the strongest terms China’s escalation in the region around Taiwan, as seen through our recent G7 statement.

I instructed officials to summon the Chinese ambassador to explain his country’s actions.

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UK energy bills – six ways to reduce the impact of soaring prices

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Be it a loft insulation drive or a lower price cap, there are many ways to help – but action must be swift and extensive

The UK government has been urged to take further action to alleviate the impact of soaring energy prices, and there are a number of measures it could take.

Any rescue package would need to be swift and extensive to prevent households being plunged into poverty this winter as home energy prices surge. Ministers will also need to dig deep to prevent more businesses hit by rising energy costs from defaulting on loans and declaring themselves bankrupt.

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Liz Truss doubles down on tax cuts over support for energy bills

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Foreign secretary had previously said she did not want to give ‘handouts’ to people struggling with the cost of living

Liz Truss has doubled down on her refusal to offer significant help to people with soaring energy bills this winter, despite a forecast that these could exceed £4,200 annually from January, and rise further during 2023.

Truss, the runaway favourite to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister next month, has already said she does not want to give “handouts” to people struggling with bills, preferring to prioritise tax cuts.

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Truss and Sunak accused of ‘living in parallel universe’ on bills crisis – UK politics live

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Latest updates: Lib Dem leader says Tory leadership hopefuls have no plan to help millions of families struggling with price rises

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a leading poverty charity, says, in the light of the latest forecast about how energy bills will rise (see 10.54am), the government needs to at least double the help already provided to help people through the cost of living crisis. This is from Peter Matejic, its chief analyst.

The latest projections of annual energy bills exceeding £4,200 from January is the latest in a series of terrifying warnings over the past week, from the Bank of England and others. Families on low incomes cannot afford these eye watering sums and as a nation we can’t afford to ignore an impending disaster.

Both candidates to be prime minister must now recognise the extraordinarily fast-changing situation and act to protect the hardest hit from the coming emergency.

Unite said the 4% increase for staff in middle pay bands announced by the government last month is a “massive pay cut” because of soaring inflation.

The union will now consult with its 100,000 health members across the NHS in both England and Wales on whether they accept the “imposed deal” or want to challenge it through industrial action, which could mean strikes this winter.

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Ed Davey calls for halt to energy price cap increase to avoid ‘catastrophe’

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Exclusive: Lib Dem leader says new PM should let government pay £36bn cost in new ‘energy furlough scheme’

Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak should cancel the £1,400 energy price cap increase in October in a new “energy furlough scheme” and government should absorb the £36bn cost of the hike, the leader of the Liberal Democrats has said.

Ed Davey said neither candidate appeared to have any policies that grasped the magnitude of what could happen this autumn. “We are facing a catastrophe this winter, a drop in living standards unlike anything we have seen in my lifetime,” he said.

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UK braces for even higher bills as Norway threatens electricity export cut

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Water levels in southern Norway so low domestic consumers may be prioritised over international customers

British consumers could face even higher bills and potential energy shortages this winter after Norway threatened to ration electricity exports.

The UK receives hydroelectric power from Norway through a subsea interconnector cable running beneath the North Sea.

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Gordon Brown: ‘Set emergency budget or risk a winter of dire poverty’

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Former PM has warned of a financial timebomb awaiting families as Labour plans a major intervention to address crisis

Boris Johnson and the Tory leadership candidates should agree an immediate emergency budget tackling the spiralling cost of living, Gordon Brown has said, or risk “condemning millions of vulnerable and blameless children and pensioners to a winter of dire poverty”.

The intervention by the former prime minister comes as new figures seen by the Observer show that more than 4 million households are on course to spend a quarter of their net income on energy.

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More than one in eight UK households fear they have no way of making more cuts

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As energy bills soar, survey shows almost half of homes are worried about paying rent or mortgage

More than one in eight UK households fear they have no further way to make cuts to afford a sharp increase in annual energy bills this autumn.

More than a quarter of households earning less than £20,000 worry they will be unable to cope with higher bills, with families in Yorkshire, the south-west and Northern Ireland the least confident about covering their costs, according to the latest rebuilding Britain index of 20,000 people by Legal & General.

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Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss facing Tory members in Leeds for first official leadership hustings – UK politics live

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Leadership rivals bid to win members’ support in foreign secretary’s home town

Drug-related deaths in Scotland fell by nine in 2021, according to the latest figures released by National Records of Scotland, the first decrease since 2013 but falling well short of the significant reduction that campaigners are calling for.

The latest figure of 1,330 is still the second highest annual total on record, and Scotland continues to have by far the highest drug death rate recorded by any country in Europe and five times the rate in England.

We’ve had a raft of reports, policies and strategies that say what needs to change, and families are more likely to be included round the table, but it’s much harder to track their influence on the ground. We don’t understand what’s getting in the way of good words becoming good deeds.

1,330 of our fellow Scots have died entirely preventable deaths and we should not be celebrating this as an achievement ... The solutions are no secret. We need action, not reports with recommendations that are never implemented.

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Green upgrades could cut UK energy bills by £1,800 a year, finds study

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Homeowners can boost property value by average of £10,000, shows research by WWF and ScottishPower

Britons could cut their annual energy bills while slashing their carbon emissions and boosting the price of their home, research has shown.

A study by WWF and ScottishPower has found that installing green technologies could reduce energy bills by up to £1,878 a year and cut home carbon emissions by more than 95% over the lifetime of their installation.

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Europe could face energy rationing as ‘really tough winter’ looms, Shell boss warns

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Ben van Beurden says Ukraine war fallout means big rise in bills and possible need to ration supplies

European consumers could face the prospect of energy rationing this winter as costs continue to soar amid the risk of Russia cutting off gas supplies, Shell’s chief executive has said.

“It will be a really tough winter in Europe,” said Ben van Beurden, speaking at the Aurora spring conference in Oxford on Thursday. “We will all face very significant escalation in energy prices. In the worst case, Europe will need to ration its energy consumption.”

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Europe and UK pour 17,000 tons of cooking oil into vehicles a day

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Analysis finds 58% of rapeseed oil in Europe is burned for fuel despite soaring prices and climate impact

Europe and the UK are pouring 17,000 tons – or about 19 million bottles – of cooking oil into vehicle fuel tanks every day, even though it is up to two-and-a-half times more expensive than before 2021, according to new analysis.

The equivalent of another 14 million bottles a day of palm and soy oil – mostly from Indonesia and South America – is also burned for fuel, the research says.

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Energy price cap in Britain could near £3,000 this autumn

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New forecasts suggest household bills could rise more than £1,000 after another spike in wholesale prices

The energy price cap could reach nearly £3,000 in the Britain at the beginning of October, with the planned increase possibly being more than £1,000 according to a new forecast.

It is expected to rise to £2,980.63 for the next period, which runs between October and December, after another spike in wholesale demand prices last week.

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