Energy industry supports freeze on price rises in April

EnergyUK has endorsed a collective call to keep the Energy Price Guarantee at £2,500 a year

Energy industry trade body Energy UK has expressed its support for a call for the government to postpone energy bill hikes in April.

A few days ago, in a letter to the Chancellor, Martin Lewis, Founder of MoneySavingExpert, urged Jeremy Hunt to ditch the plan of raising the level of the Energy Price Guarantee by 20% to £3,000 in April.

Mr Lewis said: “I would ask you to urgently consider postponing that increase. This cannot wait until the Budget – in practice, energy firms will need to know much sooner if the planned rise isn’t happening on 1st April, or they are bound to have to communicate to customers that it is coming.

“This decision to increase prices was made at a time when wholesale rates were looking to be far higher than they are now. In fact, on current predictions, the EPG subsidy may well only be needed from April to July. After that, the underlying price cap currently looks like it may be cheaper even the current EPG rate of £2,500 a year for a typical household.”

Energy UK has said: “We are supporting MoneySavingExpert in this collective call for the Chancellor to postpone the impending price rises in April and protect consumers from falling into fuel poverty.”

ELN has contacted the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero for comment.

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