Any government subsidy for gas? Or only for electricity and alternative fuels?

CalJo99

Hi - can I just get confirmation that there is NO government help/subsidy for households who heat their house with mains gas? That we are only getting help with electricity bills, and purchasing alternative fuels like LPG/Oil?

If so, it seems a bit unfair, considering I believe around 70% of households use mains gas for their main central heating. 

GingerTim

Anyone on the EPG has already benefited from several months' worth of government subsidy on the per kwh price for gas.

Robin9

The help has been for the utilities but paid to the electricity for convenience on the basis that nearly everyone has electric.

I am one of those 70%.  The £66/67 got refunded to my bank via EDF.   I chose to put that on one side but I could have made a top up payment to my gas if I wanted.

CalJo99

Ah, OK, so the £66/67 per month received via electricity suppliers is also supposed to be used for paying the gas bill, as well as the electricity bill.

Thank you for the clarification. 

Spoonie_Turtle

The £400 EBSS (in £66/67 payments) was for everybody, it was just delivered through electricity accounts as the vast majority of households have one of those whereas not everyone has gas.

The £400 support was intended to help with heating - either by being credit on a dual-fuel account, being withdrawn from electricity account to put onto a gas account if separate suppliers, or simply freeing up that money that people didn't have to use for their electricity to be able to be used for gas.  The success is debatable, but that was the intention.

Gas and electricity have had government subsidy on the kWh costs.  The alternative fuel payment was so that people heating with something other than gas or electricity got some government help too, and helping mitigate the steep rise in cost of those fuels.

If you are on mains gas but don't have an electricity account to have received the £400, you should apply here https://www.gov.uk/apply-energy-bill-support-if-not-automatic

Edit: when I started typing this just one reply was showing, but two more appeared before I posted and didn't notice.  I see my response was redundant in the end, apologies.

Qyburn

CalJo99 said:

Hi - can I just get confirmation that there is NO government help/subsidy for households who heat their house with mains gas? That we are only getting help with electricity bills, and purchasing alternative fuels like LPG/Oil?

If so, it seems a bit unfair, considering I believe around 70% of households use mains gas for their main central heating. 

Gas prices, the per kWh price on your bills, have been seriously subsidised since October, someone can correct me but I think those initial EPG rates were equivalent to an annual subsidy of £500 off an "average" gas bill.  How much more subsidy do you think you should get?

Edit October to December you've received a subsidy of 4.2p per kWh, from January it's been 6.4p. How much gas do you use?

CalJo99

I thought the £66 per month was to help with electricity costs, and then those who heat their home with oil, were getting more money (the £200k AFP), whereas those who heat their home with gas were not getting anything equivalent to the AFP.

Since most of the oil-heated homes will also have electricity, it seems they have an advantage over gas heated ones.

However, if the cost of gas has been kept under by the government, but the cost of oil has not, then I guess the £200 AFP is to cover that mismatch? 

CalJo99

My BG gas is now two and a half times more expensive pkw hour than it was this time last year. 

Mstty

Yep same for most except a few that fixed(some fixed for three years before all this)

It's not likely too go back to those levels anytime soon. 

Qyburn

CalJo99 said:

However, if the cost of gas has been kept under by the government, but the cost of oil has not, then I guess the £200 AFP is to cover that mismatch? 

That is it exactly. You have probably received more in the way of government handouts as a result of that subsidy on every single unit of gas that you use.

If you'd like to say how much gas you used in October to December, and how much you expect to use January to March, then we can work out exactly how much subsidy you've received.

Qyburn

CalJo99 said:

My BG gas is now two and a half times more expensive pkw hour than it was this time last year. 

If you were paying the true price it would be more.

During the decades that mains gas was by far the cheapest form of heating, nobody gave a hoot for the 30% of households who were excluded. Now gas prices have risen it seems some expect government handouts, paid for by the rest of us, to retain that bonus.