So the maximum an average family can pay for fuel bills is £2500 ?

[Champainesocialist]

According to the PM this morning. I actually thought it would be worse. At least families will have some certainty.

@Clavinova what on earth do Labour have to do with this ? 🙄Did they put words in Liz Truss’s mouths? They are irrelevant to what she said today, why are you talking about them? It’s a massive concern that going into the winter with a backdrop of steeply rising utility bills that the PM has said something that will lead families to believe something incorrect that will hit them financially.

Labour are not relevant here.

I had an email from British Gas a few days ago spelling it out to me that although the average was £2500, based on our last year's usage ours would be about £2900 so the energy companies must think it may be misleading

This is an analogy that might be helpful.

Imagine gas as an apple.
The price of apples has been going up.
They were predicted to go very high.
The Government has said they will tell companies to sell an apple at a fixed price for the next 2 years, regardless of the actual cost of the apple.

The 'price cap' is the typical cost to a family looking at the amount a typical family eats per year.

If you eat more, you will pay more.
If you eat less, you will pay less.

(Obviously you have another fruit as well. And a daily charge to be allowed to go and buy the fruit from the shop)

(And don't ask how they will pay the difference between the actual cost of the apple and the price the company sells you it at)

OFGEM has set the average use as Electricity 2900 kWh and Gas 12000 kWh per annum

Sorry OP if you have been duped. Whilst I don't think Liz Truss lies on the same industrial scale as her predecessor (the only person I think Boris Johnson never lied to was his late mother), either through ignorance or intent the current Prime Minister will still lie from time to time.

BoxcarMilly see my post above. Those are the averages used in the equation to get cost total £2500

I don't think she's lying - I think she just hasn't fully grasped it. Which is even more worrying IMO.

She's supposed to be an intelligent person 🙄

#Bring Boris Back

I think someone should ask politicians and journalists what they think the price cap actually means.

And then follow up with some more questions to test their understanding

Are Labour in government, how would their plans or policies have any relevance to what is happening this winter?

@BMW6 OFGEM has set the average use as Electricity 2900 kWh and Gas 12000 kWh per annum

Thanks for that, but we have a Smart Meter that doesn't record kWH just cost.

An immense amount of airtime and print space that has been devoted to clarifying this £2500 figure ever since it was announced.

The opinion formers, PR advisors at Tory party HQ/ HMG and Tory politicians would have to be thick as mud not to know that the figure, quoted without any caveats, frequently leads to miss understanding about energy bills amongst a lot of the general public.

Sadly I think there has to be a degree of intent in the language that was used today.

No, she lied. Full Fact have written to her asking her to set the record straight.

Whether this is from being thick or dishonest (she is being dishonest), what I cannot fathom is why journalists and interviewers dont just challenge her, literally say 'thats a lie'

Why does no one challenge these people?

Sigh.......

No.

The average family eat 7 bananas a week, at the moment those bananas cost 50p each, so at the moment they pay £3.50 a week. After the price cap bananas will be £1.50 each, so the same amount of bananas will cost £10.50.

So the average family will spend £10.50 on bananas, people who eat more bananas will pay more, people who eat fewer bananas will pay less.

I agree but you need an interviewer who is a bit mathematically literate, briefed on the subject and quick off the mark, ready to jump in the minute the comment is made.

How many of those are there?

It really should be challenged face to face in coming days but I bet most of the Westminster political interviewers won't want to risk their careers pushing the point and I bet PMLT will never do an interview with the likes of Martin Lewis.

Eon have said my bill will be £3100 even tho we have only lived here for 7 months,paid no more than £25 a month for gas,£55 electric.

Truss was I understand known as a leaker in Cabinet - she likes a transactional relationship with journalists where she feeds them titbits and they do her favours.

Like others I'm still not entirely sure whether she has absorbed 'the line to take' without fully understanding the detail, or is deliberately misleading the public. I'm inclined to think she didn't understand it initially as apparently the later interviews she did slightly alter what she said, including the the 'average family' bit; but she still chose to give misleading info throughout.

I do expect there will be market turnaround in a while, and the Mail will be able to print graphs going up and all will be sunny in Tufton Street. But our lives are going to be harder. And more so if our PM doesn't know what she's doing.

I'm assuming if Clavinova is back that the Tories think there's a risk of a general election.

As far as I can make out bills will double?

I also read somewhere gas whole prices have eased a little?

As an aside I don't like or understand the abuse clavinova gets on here.
She always posts articles with links?
Poster's like her stop mumsent becoming an echo chamber.

Yes, more or less, if you're around an average user and don't have a lot of debt or credit and aren't coming off a very cheap fix.

Of course, if you're on an existing fix that carries on for a bit longer, your bill will stay the same, before the £400, but if you've fixed at a higher rate, it's worth checking what will happen to you. I think anyone who has fixed at a higher rate will be automatically moved to the new 2 year price cap, but I'm not certain about this.

If you're a low user, you might get away with a smaller increase because the £400 is a bigger proportion of your bill, but if you use above the average amount used to calculate the price cap, your bill will more than double as it's a smaller proportion.

All the above based on you using the same amount as last year, which may also change, as we could have a colder winter than the last few mild ones, or many people are going to actively reduce their consumption, to try and mitigate the price rises.

So given all the 'it depends' going on there, how can anyone take a statement like 'the maximum an average family can pay for fuel bills is £2500' at face value?

Well either the PM is deliberated misleading people or our Oxford educated Prime Minister doesn't understand her own policy, so how can it be surprising that not all the public get it?

Especially when the person in charge, explaining it to them is getting it wrong?

@TheRubyRedshoes

As an aside I don't like or understand the abuse clavinova gets on here.

I'm not sure of the protocol about commenting on that, or other posters...I'll give it a go and risk the wrath of MNHQ.

I think the problem for many who follow the politics threads is historically (certainly as far back as the heated Brexit threads, if not before) whenever a really sticky or difficult issue pops up for the Tories or one of it's leading lights we get a string of links to Labour Party issues that may or may not have anything to do with the point of the thread.

There's rarely if ever attempt made to address the actual point of the thread or address problems people have with the Tories, instead it's consistently "Ah, but look over here at Labour" followed by links.

It's really has gone on for years across a range of topics which is probably why some people get a bit short with the poster when they pop up again.

Just MHO you understand.

Hopefully people will now realise the amount they have to pay for energy over the next 2 years as the price per unit has been fixed.

HOWEVER - there has been support for vulnerable groups, low income groups, pensioners etc.

This support may not last for long, which means that once it's gone, the price of energy will still be the same and the extra money they received to support will have gone. This is quite significant in some cases.

There are also people on prepayment meters who won't have had the chance to build up a credit over summer and I fear will be hit with larger than expected costs of topping up the meter this winter and next winter. As the cost of living costs have increased elsewhere, will the money be available for them to put in the meter or will it have been used elsewhere as the cost of living has increased.

I understand perfectly well .

I would say as a swing voter that the strength of feeling on politics thread's and( perhaps some poster's verging on agressive, maybe even abusive at times ), has come from people who seemed to be against brexit and lefter leaning ( of course many on the left also support brexit).

It's a public forum. People chat.

People may not like to see or hear evidence that goes against their set view but this is what stops mumsent from becoming an echo chamber.

Other people may not like her in put. I do.

I'm a swing voter and not into any of the main parties, I wouldn't be surprised if there is an election soon so yes,I'm interested if Truss is doing one thing and also starmer is.