To think that very few people can manage £4200 energy bills

[Butterflyfluff]

news.sky.com/story/energy-bills-forecast-to-rise-even-higher-than-previously-thought-12668906

This simply isn’t manageable for the majority of people.

Where’s this going to end?

@disneylover367 the £4.2k is an estimated annual bill for an ‘average home’.

So some households will be higher, and some lower.

The price cap doesn’t set the highest total amount you can be charged for the year, it sets the highest amount you can be charged per unit of energy, as well as the amount that customers pay for the standing charge (which covers stuff like infrastructure). So the amount you pay will be dependent on how much you use.

They were designed for a world where wholesale prices were so cheap that energy retailers were able to take the piss, charging people with a massive mark up included.

They were never designed to protect people from massive, long term spikes in wholesale proces.

Which is not me defending them: they have never been fit for anything but the specific 'problem' of retailers profiteering. Now that it is producers profiteering, they are toothless.

The government are sleepwalking into an utter disaster

Because there are, for the most part, children playing at politics. Not serious politicians.

The toddlers have been left unsupervised for long enough. We need some grown ups back on the scene.

We'll survive here but we're 2 people with no kids and luxuries we can cut back on. I've also taken on a second part time job in addition to my full time one.

I'm so worried about some of my friends though - several are SAHM with children under 2 for whom going back to work would literally cost more in child care than they can earn (poor area for wages), and it would remove what little UC they currently get as well.

Another friend is on a very fixed income - she's disabled, has PIP etc. Not possible for her to work in any role for multiple reasons including MH as well as physical health (you are basically unemployable when you can't get out the bedroom several days a week due to PTSD flashbacks etc). She's utterly fucked despite living alone in a tiny council bungalow - where will she find 80% more to pay her bills? There's nowhere to strip the money from to budget for this. She barely eats in winter as it is because she can't afford to.

Her mum is also fucked - she is retired, COPD, lives in a privately rented flat and has barely left the house since Covid put the fear of death into her through shielding for so long. She's got no way to increase her income either. No outgoings to cut as it is!

What's that got to do with my post?

Hang on, I'll cancel my £8 a month SIM only contract, that'll help. I'll be uncontactable but hey it's £8 towards our energy bills.

The OP on that thread is an idiot.

@StrychnineInTheSandwiches If there wasn’t a price cap, what do you think would happen? Without a price cap your bills would be even higher - many retail suppliers are actually making a loss as they’re not recovering the costs of buying energy from customers at the mo.

I’m not saying the system as a whole is working, but the bind Ofgem is in is if they reduce the price that suppliers can charge consumers (by reducing the price cap), all of the suppliers will go bust. The suppliers are paying £X for the energy, they need to recover the cost of the energy from the consumers.

The problem is the extremely high price of wholesale energy which is impacted by policy, political pressures etc. Options would be to renationalise, make policy changes to increase stability of energy supply, increase taxes on producers or otherwise limit their profits etc.

Remember how the government announced that student tuition fees would be capped at 9K but universities could charge what they chose, and they all promptly said they would charge 9K?

It's going to take a general strike / civil disobedience / riots. We need to be more French.

I have absolutely no idea how Labour or Lib Dem would manage it, and for all those people who bleat on about "oh but it would be worse under Labour..." the fact is, it's a hypothetical argument and a mute point.

But what REALLY fucking annoys me is that this government have had MONTHS of warnings and they are STILL not listening. The Tories are literally ignoring the problems. There is absolutely no excuse for Truss/Sunak to sit together in a room right now and create a plan that they both agree to. Even if it was just for optics.

This isn't a surprise. Much like Covid, which literally came bounding along the road screaming and waving a giant flag shouting "I'M COMING - YOO HOO I'M ON WAY" this is a crisis which is so glaringly apparant and where the fuck are our PM, our forthcoming PM and our Chancellor? On fucking holiday. That literally sums this lot up. They only care about themselves.

Screw the lot of them.

I’m sure Liz Truss will sort it out. A tax cut of 2% on a salary of say £100K will be a big help. ☹️

It’s 1/3 of my wage

Without a price cap your bills would be even higher - many retail suppliers are actually making a loss

How does this square with the massive profits being reported?

The people who can afford all of that can probably afford the increase! New curtains alone, especially thick ones, is an outlay of thousands!

It shows how many people in this country think- they will just blame the poor for their 'decisions'. hence why there isn't a riot.

I think those of you saying people will just need to cut back on holidays and trips out to be ok are very naive to what a lot of people will be facing this winter.

The retail suppliers are not the ones setting the prices or making the profits, that's the generation companies, who sell on the wholesale market to the suppliers (British Gas, Eon, Octopus etc) who we buy our energy from as consumers.

I’m lucky to be on a fixed contract which expires in October, so I will have to find a new contract before then. I’m quite good at turning the heating down, wearing pullovers, etc. BUT, my guess is that the standing charges for gas and electricity will be huge, so no matter how much I turn down the thermostat, I’ll still pay massive amounts. Correct me if I’m wrong.

I predict social unrest across the country this winter.

Exactly and when people really do cut back on discretionary spending the economy will absolutely crater as hundreds of thousands of businesses will cease trading.

Millions of people like myself and my husband who work full time have nothing to cut back on, all of our bills are essential.

There's nothing left in our pot.

It's affecting my middle class circle now. People font know how they're going to pay. Second jobs that used to bring in 'extra' money for luxuries are now a necessity for normal daily expenses. Things are going to get very, very scary and the MPs are on holiday.

Standing charges have gone up but they are still a small proportion of the total cost.

Even if they were £1 a day that’s only £365 out of the £4200 bill.

If there wasn’t a price cap, what do you think would happen? Without a price cap your bills would be even higher - many retail suppliers are actually making a loss as they’re not recovering the costs of buying energy from customers at the mo.

Well it's not much of a 'cap' if they they increase it every three months, is it?

I read that 10 million people in this country have less than £100 of savings.

If so then yeah, 'cutting out a luxury holiday' won't do it for them.

The shit will hit the fan this autumn and winter. If we have a cold winter then I dread to think how many people will die. And how many house fires from candles and deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning will we see.

The people who can afford all of that can probably afford the increase New curtains alone, especially thick ones, is an outlay of thousands

While your point that the less well off won't be able to invest in energy saving measures is a good one, new curtains do not cost 'thousands' FFS.

Last winter I got some long thermal blackout curtains, that are also quite wide from Dunelm for £80 a pair.

Only on Mumsnet, over the last couple of days I've learned that a new kitchen costing £10k is 'very cheap', it's normal to spend more than £1000 on a mobile phone and now curtains cost 'thousands'.

It's already started, I think we can expect more strike qction from various sectors!