British Gas has announced it will raise its energy prices by an average of 5.5% starting from May.

This will take the price of the ‘Big Six’ supplier’s standard tariff to £1,161 for a typical dual fuel customer, an average increase of £60 per year.

Owner Centrica expects the new price will affect around 4.1 million customers – it says the increase is happening as a result of rising wholesale and policy costs and blamed government policy for putting more pressure on customers’ bills.

Mark Hodges, CEO of Centrica Consumer, said: “We have today reluctantly announced plans for an increase in our standard variable tariff (SVT) from 29 May 2018.

“We fully understand that any price increase adds extra pressure on customers’ household bills. We stopped selling the SVT, which has no end date, on 31 March so it’s no longer available to new customers.

“We are also encouraging our existing customers on this tariff to choose one of our new fixed-term deals. And by the end of 2018 we hope over one million more customers will have chosen to move onto one of these alternative deals.”