Will we really see bills stay below the ridiculous Oct prediction?

[pinkyponkyplink]

Is this actually going to be happen? We have been worried sick about affording £400 and £700 a month predictions. It would make a huge difference to us! Just can't actually believe it might not happen after all the worry!

This is why I didn’t fix a high price

as government have to do something

U.K. is the only country that is paying stupid silly over the top people can’t afford prices

also be expected to keep paying a higher rate to payback the cost of keeping it cheaper for those that didn't fix.

Not didn't fix. Couldn't fix.

If your supplier went bust you had no choice who you went to. If you went to a supplier that didn't offer fixes (e.g. Shell) then you had no where to go. Other companies would not accept new customers and you couldn't fix with your own supplier. So you were/are stuck on the variable rate for the last year and the foreseeable future. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of customers in that posotion.

I hope they give the fixers a way out and onto the new government variable rate without penalty - and expect they will - but don't think it fair to label everyone on a variable rate as just 'choosing' not to fix.

@ShesNotTheMessiah exactly! We weren't offered a reasonable fix other than to pay 5x more than our usual bill.

I fixed because I just needed to have an idea of our outgoings (control freak) and the cooling off period allows for Liz’s announcement.
Probably back to variable tomorrow until a new cheaper tariff is available.

@TooMuchToDoTooLittleInclination That's literally always the risk you take with a fixed deal. You're not doing it for others, you did it for certainty for yourself.

We fixed before last winter, and then fixed again for this winter, but energy company went under, so standard rate for first time in decades. I have desperately been trying to fix before this winter, but the kwh rates were sky high, so I've held off.

I'm hopeful that tomorrow's plan will mean that energy costs will be manageable for us. If there is a two year cap, energy companies will act accordingly, so it may mean markets return to a bit of normality. If what's being suggested on social media is what's announced, we'll be OK. But we're right at the top of what I still call working class and at the bottom of middle class in terms of income and outgoings.

A lot of people are not going to be OK.

18 months will take us to about 6 weeks before the next General election, if we don't have another one in the mean time! It means it won't tie another government up with this, they'll just have to work out how they're paying for it!

@Curta

What ARE you on about??

I stated several times that I knew the risk of fixing was that prices would go down. I took the risk on the basis of the known facts & my assessment of the global issues etc NOT the government changing the goal posts. It's really not complicated why people who fixed might be a tad annoyed if they don't do something to our rates too.

& I never said I did it for anyone else!! I fixed because it was the best thing for me. NO ONE fixes for anyone else's benefit, because it doesn't really help anyone else. (Only minutely as the more people who fix, the more stability the companies have & the more fuel they can be confident buying in advance, BUT, I never said it was for anyone else!! I SAID I'm trying not to mind, but...it is annoying me that I'll might have paid more during my fix and now also be expected to keep paying a higher rate to payback the cost of keeping it cheaper for those that didn't fix

@ShesNotTheMessiah

I know lots of people couldn't fix when they were transferred, but the majority of those people had taken advantage of the much lower prices those much smaller companies were charging (which they could do because they weren't buying stores of fuel etc) so those people paid less than those who went with the bigger companies who were more stable.

...& I know lots of people who chose not to fix because it was more expensive than the variable rate & they 'weren't going to pay more' & weren't looking ahead to the price cap rising due to the various issues.

'Allowing' fixers to go onto the 'lower rate' is only part of the issue. They need to back date it to the lower rate from when people fixed and for it not to go higher than the rate people fixed at. It would be more complicated than they'll manage to make it 'fair'. Plus they shouldn't be able to change the goal posts, it destabilises everything.

what next? Putting a restriction on mortgage interest rates & tough luck to those that fixed? Removing tax from diesel & doubling it on unleaded?

people make decisions taking these things into consideration, not the govt changing goal posts overnight.

i don't want (us all) to pay high energy prices (which we will have to, to repay the borrowing) for years, in order to make Liz Truss look like some kind of hero.

''They'll' fund it now with borrowing & we will pay for it by them keeping OUR energy prices higher than they need to be, until it's repaid. So WE, not THEY will be paying for it.

It was always going to happen. Without such measures the economy would collapse as surely as it would have without COVID measures. The only reason they've strung it out this long is so we plebs will be grateful our bills are only doubling and hail the new PM as our saviour.

The government are effectively giving the energy companies a lot of money we will all need to pay back at some stage. Plus she is cutting taxes which benefit the rich a lot more than the poor.
The shareholders of shell ( people like Ms Truss ) will benefit , most normal people won't and it kicks the can down the road for a bit longer until it'll go up again I suppose
They don't want a windfall tax , but instead we all pay for them to continue to make record profits.

People who have already fixed took a massive risk. Very obvious that the new government would do something, so why not wait?

We didn’t fix as I was banking on the government having to do something. We took that risk, just as those who fixed took a different risk. I do think that fixes should be altered to reflect the new price cap once it’s confirmed, and hopefully that will happen, however backdating the fixes would be complicated and not really necessary.

Backdating fixes wouldn't be complicated at all. They just cancel the fix contract like it never happened and recalculate the bill from the day before the fix was taken out using the standard rate.

They recalculate and reissue bills all the time when they send out an estimated bill due to the the customer not sending in readings or them ignoring ones that are sent in, and the process would be exactly the same.

BG have on their website not to contact them they will send you an email or letter with how the government change affects you, I guess they are expecting another meltdown of the website and phones.

If you have uneconomic fixed contracts as a result of these changes then just cancel the contract. There’ll be a cancellation charge but it’ll probably be worth paying

Not strictly true as we took a fix with zero exit penalties. It was a no brainer in light of no leaks or announcements at that time.

My exit charges from my fix which I did in June are £150, fix was £2670 equivalent to £1971 April price cap, so not to bad but if I do have to pay the exit charges I shall be leaving BG at the earliest opportunity. It does state on T&C though no exit charges if staying with BG.

Fortunately because it's been summer I haven't already paid too much over the odds, some less fortunate fixers though would have fixed into very high rates about August time when the price forecasts for next year were really ramping up.

We could afford the increase, but would be spending absolutely nothing in the economy as a result.
I'm hoping for the average household bill of £2500, even though its far higher than we've ever paid before, so that we can support our local pubs, restaurants and shops.
We're still going to live like the new cap didn't come in anyway and use as little energy as we can get away with, to get our bills as low as possible.

I know lots of people couldn't fix when they were transferred, but the majority of those people had taken advantage of the much lower prices those much smaller companies were charging (which they could do because they weren't buying stores of fuel etc) so those people paid less than those who went with the bigger companies who were more stable.

They did not 'take advantage' and the prices were not much lower.

They shopped around - as everyone (government included) had been telling them to for years. It suited the government to have that kind of energy market at the time.

You feel hard down by. I get it. We all do. But that doesn't mean people in a different situation were somehow taking advantage of anything. We all just did what we thought was best at the time and the fallout - for all - has been pretty horrendous. Anyone forced into the SVR has paid over the odds for the last year compared to some of the fixes that have been talked about on here.

Don't make it seem like they were pulling some sneaky move and getting really cheap energy, by doing what everyone advised them to at the time.

This is not my analogy, but a other poster's, on a different thread. I thought it was super simple to explain what the cap was.

So, imagine that every unit of energy (kWh) is an apple.

The government have said that the maximum price that can be charged for an apple is £1. The average household will eat 100 apples a year, at a cost of £100.

You don't eat as many apples (smaller households, for example), you only eat 50 apples a year. So your bill will be £50.

Fred down the road has a much bigger household, and eats 200 apples a year. His bill will be £200. This is more that the "capped average household bill of £100", because he has eaten more apples than average.

It doesn't take into account standing charges, but is a nice, visual analogy.

Again, not mine, I just borrowed it.

@Vebrithien Is Fred BU to be miffed that, having done all his figures and working on best advice, he fixed at £1.45 per apple in August as he heard apples would go up to £1.50 in a couple of months?

@Dontfuckingsaycheese

Fixed it for you

Is Fred BU to be miffed that, having done all his figures and working on best advice, he fixed at £1.45 per apple in August when he could have carried on paying £1 for them as he heard apples would go up to £3 in a couple of months.

Because that's the decision that people have had to make over the past few months.

Haven't most energy companies got in the T&C that you can move tariffs within the company and not pay exits charges. I am hoping that BG adhere to this