Energy Price Guarantee No Longer 2 years just 6 months at current level

Chrysalis

Spoonie_Turtle said:

ariarnia said:

if you look at shared room rate for your local area it would give you an idea of what you could charge (obviously you could go a little higher or lower depending on how badly you needed the money or how much demand there was in the area. 

here it's about £59 a week. 

Do you mean the LHA?  That's set at only the 30th percentile of market rate.

Sadly not even that as they include "off the market" HA properties and existing private rents "off the market" as well.  In my area e.g. LHA bears no resemblance to market reality and landlords have absolutely no obligation to use it to set their rent.  If I remember right they also didnt even bother tracking rates at all for a number of years until Sunak forced an update during first year of Covid.  Sunak has probably been the most sympathetic Tory chancellor to people on income benefits during my lifetime.

Spoonie_Turtle

Chrysalis said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

ariarnia said:

if you look at shared room rate for your local area it would give you an idea of what you could charge (obviously you could go a little higher or lower depending on how badly you needed the money or how much demand there was in the area. 

here it's about £59 a week. 

Do you mean the LHA?  That's set at only the 30th percentile of market rate.

Sadly not even that as they include "off the market" HA properties and existing private rents "off the market" as well.  In my area e.g. LHA bears no resemblance to market reality and landlords have absolutely no obligation to use it to set their rent.  If I remember right they also didnt even bother tracking rates at all for a number of years until Sunak forced an update during first year of Covid.  Sunak has probably been the most sympathetic Tory chancellor to people on income benefits during my lifetime.

Yep, it was 50% of market rate to begin with, cut to 30% in 2011, annual increase capped to inflation rates rather than actual market rates, then capped to 1%, then completely frozen from 2016.  It was only brought back up to 30% as part of the emergency covid help, otherwise it would probably have only been uprated with inflation from the previously frozen level.

Mstty

So without any help come 1st April it is looking like pence per kWh could double from what they are under the current EPG notional £2500 usage.

I think for a lot of people Christmas was already being paired down but in reality it now goes much further as we enter recession and the next likely interest full point rise from the Bank of England.

Really tough times ahead for a lot of people.

MattMattMattUK

Mstty said:

So without any help come 1st April it is looking like pence per kWh could double from what they are under the current EPG notional £2500 usage.

I think a lot of people will need much more advice on how to reduce energy consumption and there will be a drop in living standards as people have to cut back I expect there will be some support, I think it will be significantly cut back. Luckily for most people the increase in costs will align with a period of low usage due to warmer, lighter days, the real pain will not be felt until Winter 2023 which is the one thing that makes me think we might get an election next summer. 

Mstty said:

I think for a lot of people Christmas was already being paired down but in reality it now goes much further as we enter recession and the next likely interest full point rise from the Bank of England.

I am thinking it might even be more than 1%, I can see it being 1.25% in November then another 1% after that. 

victor2

Hopefully a lot of people (I am) are experimenting with reducing their heating costs this winter while it is relatively affordable. Utterly pointless relying on whichever government we may have next year to make any promises we can rely upon!

EssexHebridean

victor2 said:

Hopefully a lot of people (I am) are experimenting with reducing their heating costs this winter while it is relatively affordable. Utterly pointless relying on whichever government we may have next year to make any promises we can rely upon!

The problem is, a lot of us have already been trying to do this over previous years - from a sustainability point of view as much as to save a few pounds. Certainly in my home I know we've reached the stage of marginal gains now - almost all the lightbulbs have been changed to LEDs - the only ones that haven't are those that are barely used, where it makes more sense to leave in what is there than spend on replacements. Kitchen appliances are pretty much entirely new within the last 6 years since the kitchen was refurbed the exception is the washing machine but that's not a huge energy guzzler, and MrEH's coffee machine - but realistically a newer option there would be unlikely to save anything as the job it has to do is still the same. Oh and the toaster - although as that is now over 20 years old we suspect it will die and get naturally replaced before too long anyway! Again though - I can't really see beyond a toaster using what it needs to do to toast your bread?! We are still trying to reduce use where we can - and are still very much focused on driving as much use into the overnight period as possible, but there really is a limit to how much more we can pare down now without really compromising on quality of life.

The hope is that those who don't fall into this camp and have always been happy to wander round the house in a t-shirt, shorts & flipflops in mid January with the thermostat set at 25 because "It's cheap, we can afford it, who cares" start to realise that they DO now need to change - it's no longer cheap, there's every chance that they CAN'T afford it, and they will care when they realise their DD is shooting up to a level they can no longer cope with. 

Chrysalis

victor2 said:

Hopefully a lot of people (I am) are experimenting with reducing their heating costs this winter while it is relatively affordable. Utterly pointless relying on whichever government we may have next year to make any promises we can rely upon!

So I wasnt the only one thinking this, I cant help but feel as a country we are wasting so much gas.  We seem to get so many cut electric threads but barely anything for heating/gas.

This is one of the reasons I felt the EPG should have been tiered and also why we needed a campaign for cutting energy use.

mmmmikey

All the political and economic reasons for government intervention to support energy prices are still there. The EPG may have gone but the political and economic imperative to provide some sort of support is still there.

It's the EPG that has been scrapped, not the principle of providing support. The reasons for ending the EPG are clear: it represented a huge and uncertain cost and was based on borrowing money without a plan for paying it back. But this isn't an all or nothing situation - there are a whole range of plausible scenarios (each with their own benefits and drawbacks and supporters and adversaries) in  between scrapping government support altogether and leaving things as they are.

We simply don't know yet what form any targetted scheme will take, and although speculation about what might happen is entertaining it's not particularly helpful and is probably driving some folk to the point of despair (and sadly, in some cases, suicide).

Doom and gloom merchants please take note!

On the other hand, anyone in the horrible situation where they are already struggling at EPG cost levels, shouldn't give up hope. It's the moderate, common sense politicians that are in the ascendency now but they do need time to shake off the remaining loonies and work out how much future support can be provided and how it should be targetted.

If the meantime, now more than ever, anyone struggling should be encouraged to "Keep Calm and Carry On"......

wittynamegoeshere

We need a campaign around now to tell people their heating bills are going to double in a year.  Then that would give a year's notice for people to make changes, move house, save money or do whatever is needed.  But this won't happen, everyone will carry on blowing the money they don't have on tat, then there'll be stupid headlines and moaning about not being able to afford it.

Ultrasonic

wittynamegoeshere said:

We need a campaign around now to tell people their heating bills are going to double in a year.  

No we absolutely do not, since nobody knows that is what will happen.

Solid advice on how to reduce energy use coupled with encouragement for those who can afford to use more to still do so is what we 'need' right now IMHO.