Because of soaring gas and oil prices, and the regulations that determine the energy price cap, it is almost inevitable most of us will face a rise in energy bills of between 40 per cent and 50 per cent from April.
For a typical household, that’s an increase in bills of around £600 a year — which would be a painful increase in the cost of living even for those on median (middling) earnings.
It would leave the average household spending 6.5 per cent of all their disposable income, after tax and benefits, on heating and power — based on official Office for National Statistics figures. That’s one in every £15 earned to keep warm and keep the lights on.
What’s striking is that almost no initiative that the government implies it is considering — or that Labour wants — would loosen, by more than a notch, this agonising squeeze on living standards.
It looks like a proper crisis
In fact, the main initiative to which the prime minister repeatedly refers — the Warm Homes Discount — is largely an industry managed scheme, that puts up the bills of most users to subsidise those of the poorest.
If it were either doubled in generosity, from circa £150 a year in discounts, for three million current low-income beneficiaries, or if eligibility were extended to another three million people, that would increase bills for everyone else, by around £12 a year.
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