Time to ditch the standing charge?

PennineAcute

My parents pay BT for a landline which is for emergency use only.  They use their mobiles for day to day use.  I think their line rental is £18 a month.

So is it fair that they get charged £18 for the pleasure of making no phone calls?  There are winners and losers in all situations.  If the S/C was in your favour would you be complaining?

Cardew

Ultrasonic said:

facade said:

OFGEM introduces an element of  "fairness" by capping the standing charge & unit rates, otherwise it would be a race to the top.

Not quite, given that pre-cap there used to be tariffs available with zero standing charge.

-The main supplier with a zero standing charge was Ebico who were a not-for profit organisation. They also didn't charge extra for any method of payment. However the kWh prices were so high they really only suited those with very low consumption; which is why they became the supplier of choice for those with a holiday home.

Indeed I used Ebico for a detached annex - a converted stable  - that was seldom used and had very low consumption. During the days of two tier pricing for a period British Gas offered an attractive cash discount for dual fuel and a similar discount for payment by Direct Debit. My DD was set at £1 a month for gas and £1 for electricity. Most quarters the discount was greater than the cost of the gas and electricity hence BG were paying me to take their energy!

Those days are gone and personally I think it is correct to charge everyone the same daily standing charge. 

Hysteron

PennineAcute said:

My parents pay BT for a landline which is for emergency use only.  They use their mobiles for day to day use.  I think their line rental is £18 a month.

The idea of line rental of a telephone line is outdated but for now it is the main method for consumers to receive broadband access and in that case, then there has to be a payment due to the owner of the line no matter who supplies your internet access. Companies supplying broadband through cable such as Virgin do not charge line rental as the cost of their service is all-inclusive. Virgin users, therefore, have the option of getting rid of their phone line rental costs and using a mobile for calls.

If someone feels they must have a phone line solely for emergency calls then that of course is up to them and as I said the supplier of that phone line is entitled to charge for the use of it.

Ultrasonic

hangryconsumer said:

Benefited really isn't the right word here. As a consumer you shouldn't have been subjected to the unscrupulous practices that led to so many energy suppliers going bust in the first place. SOLR isn't directly related to standing charges nor is it the sole thing that people are claiming they cover.

Arguably I and many other benefited from cheaper energy as a result. Given that energy companies did go bust there were definitely other real benefits too, much as we'd all have preferred they weren't needed.

Hysteron

Ultrasonic said:

Arguably I and many other benefited from cheaper energy as a result. Given that energy companies did go bust there were definitely other real benefits too, much as we'd all have preferred they weren't needed.

Your argument though was that you "benefitted from the SOLR process" not that you may have gotten cheaper energy.

In what way then do you think you have benefitted from SOLR in comparison say with customers of Bulb, a company that also went bust and who haven't had any obvious "benefit" from SOLR?

bagand96

Nails101 said:

Seems fair to me, after all, when you fill up your car do the petrol companies impose a surcharge when you go to the till to pay for their refineries and the cost of delivering fuel to the petrol station? No, it is all factored in to the pump price. Simple. 

But does the petrol company supply and maintain a network of petrol to your front door?

Hysteron

The postie brings my mail every day to my door and it is paid for in the price of the stamp bought by the sender, not because the Post Office have given me a postcode.

I can and do get all kinds of services directly delivered to my door and those supplying them expect to be paid for the service they provide and not for me to pay a separate fixed charge for the satellites in space or cables under the ground in my street, that investment is repaid by the charge they make on me for the services I choose.. Only the energy, water and telecommunication companies charge you for something you might not even use, this is archaic and a relic of how things were done in the past.

Energy is not something anyone can do without, so you are forced to pay the standing charge no matter your circumstances or how much energy you use. This is just not working for the poorest households in our society who are paying a far greater % of their income as a result. The consequences of this will become a lot clearer before next winter is over.

Thrugelmir

Hysteron said:

Energy is not something anyone can do without, so you are forced to pay the standing charge no matter your circumstances or how much energy you use. 

Which is only fair.  Until there's a system designed which is equitable to everyone. That takes into account all the variables. The status quo isn't going to change. For the price of energy to reduce. We need to consume less as a society. Going to require a cultural rethink and adjustment. . 

Hysteron

Thrugelmir said

Which is only fair.  Until there's a system designed which is equitable to everyone.

You agree then that the system as it stands now is unfair as it is clearly not "equitable to everyone."

What is obviously fair is that you pay for what you use, that is true in everything else so why not energy? I don't get this "costs of infrastructure" since clearly, Sky didn't need a standing charge to bring Satellite TV into our homes or for Virgin to bring cable there, the standing charge is simply a way for the energy companies to guarantee a fixed return from the consumer even if they sell no energy at all. Nothing wrong with that as a way to do business but it absolutely is negative for the consumer for whom the standing charge forms a large proportion of their overall bill and it beats me as to why so many here speak up in favour of it.

When would the standing charge become an "unfair" cost? Might it be 60p/day or £2.60/day? There is a price at which the standing charge has to be too much and even 50p/day is a lot, that price I'd suggest is too much when it becomes too large a % of a typical small users bill and they then are in effect subsidising those that can afford to use a lot more electricity them themselves.

It's only now that charities and the like who are having to deal with the human fallout from these increases are looking more closely at the effects of these hikes in prices that things starting to be really noticed, hence the two reports out this week about it I think we are going to hear a lot more about these arguments in the immediate future and for a long while after that.

gt94sss2

PennineAcute said:

My parents pay BT for a landline which is for emergency use only.  They use their mobiles for day to day use.  I think their line rental is £18 a month.

If your parents have the phone line with no broadband on it, they can reduce the line rental to around £12/month.

See https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/12/bt-to-continue-discount-for-landline-only-uk-phone-users.html