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

ariarnia

Mstty said:

I think knocking the triple lock pensions on the head is a good idea. It's not sustainable otherwise.

(Heading for the bomb shelter for incoming shells)

theres been a strange few years with covid and now cost of living  so its hard to say what should happen with wages and pensions and benifits. 

what i'd like is for them to set up an independent group like they do to assess MP salary every year and go with what they recommend. 

OH thinks it would be better if its linked to wages not the current triple lock instead. 

FreeBear

wittynamegoeshere said: I've since found out that I could have added £1000s more by sticking some big letters on the walls, "Home" or "Family" or something, seemed to be the in thing the last time I looked.

........

ariarnia

FreeBear said:

wittynamegoeshere said: I've since found out that I could have added £1000s more by sticking some big letters on the walls, "Home" or "Family" or something, seemed to be the in thing the last time I looked.

........

or painting your hole house gray a couple of years ago. great fun to be had on the housing board with the 'have a look at this' thread

Nebulous2

We looked at downsizing several years ago where we were and ruled it out as prices were very compressed. We could have sold a 4 bedroom semi, with a decent garden, moved into a modern 2 bedroom flat and after costs and fees we would only have freed up £30 or £40k. 

Instead we moved 50 miles to a much cheaper area, bought a rather eccentric listed building and freed up a lot more money. It isn't as inefficient as we had imagined. The previous owner was a tradesman of sorts who effectively refurbished it by leaving the old plaster and lathe in place, framed it, stuffed the framing with fibreglass wool for insulation and put plasterboard on top. There are all sorts of things behind our walls, fireplaces, cupboards etc, all sealed up, reducing what is still a generous floor space, but helping us to heat it. 

We were fortunate that we were young enough for moving to be painless and the new area is close to where we grew up, so we are much closer to elderly parents.  We don't miss the large town where we spent 30 years at all. Sheltered housing is fairly readily available here and we have one elderly relative seriously researching it, and we have other family members where two generations have moved in together, with the older people having two rooms - a sitting room and a bedroom, with most of the rest being shared. 

While neither of these is suitable for everyone, it seems to be working for them. 

Anyway back to the original subject. Any new scheme is likely to be targeted, as a universal one has been judged too costly. Liz Truss' original scheme was going to cost more than furlough, which was an astonishing price. 

If it is targeted there will always be people who miss out. 

I suspect it will also be designed to target energy saving more effectively than the current blanket scheme. One way some countries seem to have done that is subsidising the first x number of units with people paying full market rates on anything above that.

I think any heavy user, be they young, in between, or old will have to dig deeper, maybe much deeper. That is going to be extremely difficult for some people. 

mmmmikey

Nebulous2 said:

I suspect it will also be designed to target energy saving more effectively than the current blanket scheme. One way some countries seem to have done that is subsidising the first x number of units with people paying full market rates on anything above that.

Giving everyone £400 has much the same effect as giving everyone 20p of their first 2000 units or 10p off 4000 units, etc. the only difference being for very low users who potentially get more. My own best guess is that is what we'll end up with for the reasons you state, and it also has the benefit that the mechanism for doing it the "Rishi £400" way is already in place. At the point the amount of the cash benefit (i.e. £400 or whatever it is) is known the cost is known to the government and can be budgeted for. I wonder if we'll get an indication of this in the November budget?

Nebulous2

mmmmikey said:

Nebulous2 said:

I suspect it will also be designed to target energy saving more effectively than the current blanket scheme. One way some countries seem to have done that is subsidising the first x number of units with people paying full market rates on anything above that.

Giving everyone £400 has much the same effect as giving everyone 20p of their first 2000 units or 10p off 4000 units, etc. the only difference being for very low users who potentially get more. My own best guess is that is what we'll end up with for the reasons you state, and it also has the benefit that the mechanism for doing it the "Rishi £400" way is already in place. At the point the amount of the cash benefit (i.e. £400 or whatever it is) is known the cost is known to the government and can be budgeted for. I wonder if we'll get an indication of this in the November budget?

You're right it would - but I'm not expecting everyone to get a subsidy. 

They could target certain people, those on certain benefits, people with disabilities, pension credit etc and give 70% of an average family bill at the current support level with anything over at the full market rate. 

Everyone else would pay full market rate for everything. It would have the benefit if introducing it from April of giving people the summer to get used to it. 

Spoonie_Turtle

If they do an explicit 'first X units at Y rate' kind of thing they'd have to have different tariffs for all-electric houses - more than E7 already allows for because it's not suitable for everyone.  It also won't be targeted unless there are different allowances for location, and different types of buildings with intrinsically higher space and water heating costs.

Obviously that will not happen, I would not expect it to because government schemes have a habit of not even attempting to be equitable, just pointing out it would disproportionately penalise all-electric users renting energy inefficient houses who have no say in what their setup is, and especially those in colder parts of the country.

mmmmikey

Spoonie_Turtle said:

If they do a 'first X units at Y rate' kind of thing they'd have to have different tariffs for all-electric houses - more than E7 already allows for because it's not suitable for everyone.  It also won't be targeted unless there are different allowances for location, and different types of buildings with intrinsically higher space and water heating costs.

Obviously that will not happen, I would not expect it to because government schemes have a habit of not even attempting to be equitable, just pointing out it would disproportionately penalise all-electric users renting energy inefficient houses who have no say in what their setup is, and especially those in colder parts of the country.

I guess it depends on what they do with gas prices or other fuels. I was assuming that the £400 was a payment towards energy costs generally. i.e the payment is made via electricity accounts because everyone has it. If you've also got gas (or lpg or oil or....) then great but you don't get any more - everyone gets the same - and you choose whether to spend it on E7, gas or whatever. Targeted could mean anything from "targetted to avoid heating swimming pools" to "only supporting those on benefits".

Nebulous2

Spoonie_Turtle said:

If they do a 'first X units at Y rate' kind of thing they'd have to have different tariffs for all-electric houses - more than E7 already allows for because it's not suitable for everyone.  It also won't be targeted unless there are different allowances for location, and different types of buildings with intrinsically higher space and water heating costs.

Obviously that will not happen, I would not expect it to because government schemes have a habit of not even attempting to be equitable, just pointing out it would disproportionately penalise all-electric users renting energy inefficient houses who have no say in what their setup is, and especially those in colder parts of the country.

They don't have to do anything. I also think they often do attempt to be equitable, but applying simple solutions to complex problems always throws up a lot of anomalies.

The £400 has been paid out entirely on electric, because everyone doesn't have gas. Doing that again would mean people without dual fuel would get support despite not having gas. 

I wouldn't expect regional variations, but there is already a scheme in place which gives benefit recipients additional money in very cold weather. That could be tweaked to offer more if the will was there. 

Spoonie_Turtle

mmmmikey said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

If they do a 'first X units at Y rate' kind of thing they'd have to have different tariffs for all-electric houses - more than E7 already allows for because it's not suitable for everyone.  It also won't be targeted unless there are different allowances for location, and different types of buildings with intrinsically higher space and water heating costs.

Obviously that will not happen, I would not expect it to because government schemes have a habit of not even attempting to be equitable, just pointing out it would disproportionately penalise all-electric users renting energy inefficient houses who have no say in what their setup is, and especially those in colder parts of the country.

I guess it depends on what they do with gas prices or other fuels. I was assuming that the £400 was a payment towards energy costs generally. i.e the payment is made via electricity accounts because everyone has it. If you've also got gas (or lpg or oil or....) then great but you don't get any more - everyone gets the same - and you choose whether to spend it on E7, gas or whatever. Targeted could mean anything from "targetted to avoid heating swimming pools" to "only supporting those on benefits".

True.  I understood that about the £400.  For some reason I was thinking of only electricity for the allowance of certain no. of units at a reduced rate and managed to forget entirely that gas rates will go up too … a very silly thing to forget, knowing that the price of electricity rising is because of gas prices *facepalm*