David Cameron writes for MSE on his plans to help on energy bills

tagq2

When there's an elephant in the room, a politician's solution tends to involve repainting the elephant.

threelittlepiggies

I think they're trying to make it look like they are 'dealing' with it, but £100 or £200 off some ones's bill is nothing; (Divide that by 12 and it's 8.33/16.60 per month). It is not enough and I wonder what kind of deal he has done with the energy companies so it looks to everyone like 'Dave is taking control of the situation' ( YA Ya Ohkaaaaay).
EVERYTHING is going up in price and people do not have enough money to keep up. If Dave Cameron wants his efforts for this summit to be rewarded by getting re-elected or to be remembered in history he MUST address petrol/diesel prices as well. While he is at it, maybe he could be the one Prime Minister who explains to us all where our money has actually gone, because we don't see any return on our tax bills. Maybe he could ask us if we would rather spend OUR money to have more police on our streets, better equipment for our Military, better care for abused or ill people in the UK or to see our millions of pounds being handed out abroad all the time?

Maybe he'd read this and say, "what a load of rubbish"

harz99

I agree with rogerblack - the biggest issue around tariffs is the imposition of the standing charge, which as others have said penalises low and economical users, which despite their statements the energy companies don't really want as they equate to less profit hence the standing charge to recoup their profits.

Tariffs should all be a simple rate per unit, with appropriate discounts for DD, online management, dual fuel etc. ie totally transparent. Once consumption goes above a set amount of units for either domestic or business users, the tariff per unit should go UP not down to encourage energy saving.

Of course none of this will happen as it is not in the interests of the energy companies.

As for the much vaunted protection for the vulnerable pensioners - pull the other one!

There are many pensioners who are property rich/cash poor or have savings which although meagre and paying abysmal interest take them over the benefits thresholds - they are equally vulnerable but have no chance of any reduction simply because they don't get any extra benefit over and above State Pension. Same applies to low income families struggling just above the benefits thresholds.

beedydad

Why, when there are 5 - 6 million households in known fuel poverty do utility companies have tier 1 rates higher for low use and then the more you use you get the cheaper tier 2 rates.
I expect most will have none or very little use of the lower Tier 2 and therefore are paying huge costs.

Then you want to subisides them by handing over a small bit of money, if they are eligible.

Surely the best way, if also the Green Deal is going to work is to get utility companies to charge much lower for low use and then the more you use the more you pay - that makes people also think about saving energy/money by being more energy efficient around the home!

Canucklehead

Good morning: a 'right to reply' for the other political parties?

Canucklehead

Totality

Am I the only one who does not seen why so much importance is being put on "quick, switch tariff!!!" EDIT: Actually on a website such as this I can see why (money saving obviously, and also to send people to the comparison websites).

Yes, the tariff may be cheaper, but its hardly an ideal solution and still leaves people with higher bills than a few months/years ago.

The boss of British Gas was just on Sky News talking about last year's profit of £743m. I'm pretty sure if everybody is still on the cheapest tariff, they'll still be coining it in.

Something major needs to be done. Unfortunately, I think the best we can hope for is a freeze (insert own joke with winter approaching) a la Council Tax rather than a reduction.

backfoot

Abolish anti competitive policies which are designed to trick customers:

NPower and SSE (Atlantic) £100 deferred discount policies for paying by Direct Debit. This ties in customers unfairly.Qualifying discounts must be paid monthly.

Eon's final bill policy which penalises switching customers even though they still qualify for Dual Fuel and Direct Debit discounts and other discounts.

Eon's Direct Debit spring 'zero balance' policy which can force customers to pay monthly DD's at 50% above the normal 1/12th basis.

Ban all termination fees on non fixed rate products.

Track and enforce price controls. (RPI -x%) worked well previously.

The top four can be implemented immediately and provide simplification and comparison.

Eliseydoesit

Rather disappointed you have allowed your forum to be used as a party advertising board Martin??:(
However, I suspect the PM will spit out all the right sound bites later. Anyone who is struggling with utility bills at the moment has already switched if they are not already in energy poverty, so to suggest switching is totally pointless.
The threat of capped profits to the energy companies would be a good start, anything over and above the cap should go back to the customer.If they don't like that,renationalisation is the only way to deal with the problem

macman

Eliseydoesit wrote: »

Rather disappointed you have allowed your forum to be used as a party advertising board Martin??:(
However, I suspect the PM will spit out all the right sound bites later. Anyone who is struggling with utility bills at the moment has already switched if they are not already in energy poverty, so to suggest switching is totally pointless.
The threat of capped profits to the energy companies would be a good start, anything over and above the cap should go back to the customer.If they don't like that,renationalisation is the only way to deal with the problem

No they haven't. 75% of UK households are still on Standard tariffs.

Michael_C_Feltham

No one has ever challenged the energy companies on simple business logic.

If the customer base remains roughly the same as in previous years; the supplier's Cost Base (overheads) the same; and finally their margin (Difference between Cost of their product and the selling price), then ergo, their profit must be almost identical.

Sure; their profit would rise, slightly, when their product cost increased, since if they operated on a standard margin of profit (Which 99.999999% of businesses do), then a slightly increased product cost would translate to higher customer costs.

What would not happen, is companies making Supra-Profits, following price hikes to their customers.

Companies, conventionally, increase profits by increasing revenue (Turnover from sales), by gaining significantly more customers.

Since all the main energy suppliers compete with each other to try and win more customers from their competitors, it then stands to reason (And core logic!) that if one, say British Gas, gained shed loads of customers from another, then whilsy British Gas profits would rise accordingly, the other supplier's profits would fall, in direct proportion.

Doesn't happen: they all follow my leader on price; and they all (Surprise, surprise) report record profits after serious price hikes!

The Free Market is about competition: real competition: now how can we have real competition when the suppliers (British gas, mainly) dominate the gas supply market?

We are told by the oily apologist spokespeople for the industry, that these price hikes are caused "By the wholesale market!". Well, I have checked the global gas market time and again and whenever it rises even slightly, the energy companies immediately hike their supply prices to the consumer: whenever it falls, the price to the consumer stays the same.

More critically, when say British Gas needs wholesale supplies it doesn't jump into its car and pop off to Tesco!

Precisely the same as the Oil companies gas supplies are purchased forward under contract: levying increases, almost immediately, to customers when their supply price remains constant is sheer exploitation: nothing more and nothing less.

Anyone with much of a brain knows precisely what these venal exploiters are doing: they are taking their ill-gained profits and investing them in other associated companies, most invested abroad.

Since Margaret Thatcher's government "Privatised" utilities, they have been bought and sold like tubes of Smarties: with millions being extracted in stock options and bonuses by executives, private equity investors and hedge funds.

A majority are now foreign owned.

Meanwhile, millions are now on the edge of fuel poverty and hundreds of thousands of elderly and infirm people will be totally unable to heat their homes properly this Winter: and hardly be able to afford to eat well, either.

Cases of Hypothermia will rocket: particularly if we experience a really harsh Winter.

What should be done is emulate the old American model: energy suppliers should be only allowed to charge a set statutory price per unit of energy; and no more. This should be calculated to produce a small, regular profit margin: but no super-profits.

America de-regulated energy: and then we saw the result: cost rocketed and then we had Enron.

Good call!

Ofgen is a joke: the so-called "Regulators" were set up, post privatisation purely as a sop to the public: they are like a toothless Dragon.

No powers.

If these venal, exploitative companies cannot earn a modest profit under strict statutory regulation, then the only real solution is to re-nationalise: and only pay their shareholders 10 pence in the pound.

Let's face it, they have extracted billions and billions from the long-suffering British consumer!

And furthermore, the vast majority of the infrastructure was already in place: British Gas inherited the offshore and onshore recovery and storage set-up and the distribution network, so they haven't had to invest that much!