As if people weren’t already struggling with just about everything going up very steeply in price, Ofgem said today that further pain is on the way. A further rise in the energy price cap means that households could be paying another £900 per year come October. This would be an almost doubling of the cap in 6 months and would be disastrous for people who were finding impossible to afford the basics before April’s rise.
Ed Davey has called on the Government to declare a national emergency and convene a special energy COBRA meeting to chart a way forward.
He said:
It is now or never to save families and pensioners on the brink. The government must declare the cost of living crisis a national emergency. Boris Johnson has sat on his hands for months, he cannot waste a single second longer.
Millions of people will face the heartbreaking choice between heating their home and putting food on the table if the Government fails to act.
The Prime Minister must finally show national leadership. An energy COBRA must be convened immediately, including hauling in energy firms to finally declare a windfall tax on their eye-watering profits.
Britain will never forgive Boris Johnson if he fails to save families and pensioners in a national emergency.
3 Comments
This is good from Ed , but this is very little.
Ofgem need to be overhauled. The lift of this cap makes no sense. If the wholsale price has changed, tough, the profits, Ed’s description, are eyewatering, so the price increase can morally be justifiably absorbed by the companies, not given as increased prices.
We need a regulator to regulate. And we need to nationalise energy and have it run as a service.
@ Lorenzo Cherin. ”
@ Lorenzo Cherin. “We need a regulator to regulate. And we need to nationalise energy and have it run as a service.”
I couldn’t agree more!
The profits aren’t enough to make a significant differnce to the price. Price cap needs to be removed – it was cynically put in place on the assumption that energy prices would stay low or drop. As it is, many energy suppliers have gone bust and Bulb is already in public ownership. We should be supporting the poorest with an increase in UC and medium term starting to insulate homes. Paid for with increased taxes on other things… Airline passenger duty strikes me as a good candidate, but probably higher rate income tax would need to go up too. The energy price won’t drop till we’ve been through the forthcoming recession caused by the big drop in discretionary spending: hospitality, cars, holidays, non-food retail …