Calls for social tariff on UK energy bills as rises push extra half million homes into fuel poverty
Half a million homes is a big chunk. Many rural properties are poor when it comes to energy efficiency, they are also more expensive to buy and many rural dwellers have to rely on bottled gas which can make the energy challenges they face more acute. All of this suggests (along with the on-going truth exposed by the Rowntree studies, that it is more expensive to live in rural settings) that this phenomena will bear down heavily on a significant number of less well off rural dwellers. The story tells us:
The government faces calls to bring in a social tariff to help struggling households pay their energy bills as soaring prices threaten to drive an extra half a million homes into fuel poverty this winter.
Some of the UK’s biggest energy companies have warned ministers that millions of bill payers will need extra help this winter as the regulator prepares to reveal one of the steepest ever hikes to the energy price cap.
The regulator, Ofgem, is expected to raise prices by about £150 a year for 15m homes using a default dual-fuel energy tariff from October because gas prices have soared to 16-year highs in the past week.
The “unprecedented” global gas market surge could drive Ofgem’s energy cap, which is calculated based on the cost of supplying energy, to a record £1,288 on average a year. It would also add over 500,000 homes to the more than three million already in fuel poverty, according to campaigners.
The looming crisis threatens to deal a particularly heavy blow to families hard hit by the financial fallout of the pandemic by coinciding with the wind-down of government furlough payments by September.