Stop playing us for fuels! New price cap on energy suppliers

THE Government will today announce a price cap to prevent energy suppliers “exploiting” millions of customers.

Draft legislation will limit how much firms can charge those on standard variable tariffs, estimated at 18million.

Industry regulator Ofgem will be given the power to set the cap.

Prime Minister Theresa May said: “I have been clear that our broken energy market has to change. It has to offer fairer prices for millions of loyal customers who have been paying hundreds of pounds too much.”

Business Secretary Greg Clark said: “Customers of the Big Six suppliers are overpaying to the tune of £1.4billion a year. That is simply wrong.”

But campaigners blasted delays in implementing the cap. Ofgem already caps prices for four million prepayment meter customers. Yesterday it announced plans to extend that to another one million households which receive the Warm Home Discount – saving the average household £120 a year – but not until next February.

A further two million vulnerable households would have to wait until next winter for the cap to kick in.

Ofgem chief Dermot Nolan said it could take another five months after this wider cap becomes law for the plans to actually take affect.

Citizens Advice said suppliers could “no longer get away with ripping off their poorest customers”. But Ruth London, of Fuel Poverty Action, said: “A further delay will undoubtedly lead to more deaths among the thousands who scandalously die every winter because they cannot afford to heat their homes.”