Soaring bills and the greed of energy giants

LAST year the Competition and Markets Authority published an excoriating report exposing the greed of Britain’s Big Six energy suppliers.

It found that families had paid £1.4billion in ‘excessive charges’ between 2012 and 2015, loyal customers were being hit with ‘rip-off’ tariffs and ‘confusing and inaccurate’ bills made it very difficult to compare deals and switch to cheaper rates.

By announcing an exorbitant 12.5 per cent rise in its electricity prices yesterday, British Gas (and parent company Centrica) proved nothing has changed. Even though wholesale energy costs have fallen over the last three years and inflation is under 3 per cent, three million customers will be charged an average of £76 a year more.

Centrica boss Iain Conn tried to blame transmission and distribution costs, but that didn’t stop the company making an £816million profit in the first half of 2017.

Where he does have a point, is that consumers are paying a heavy price for the ‘green’ levies imposed by politicians over the years, which British Gas claims have added up to £98 to the average bill since 2014.

Not that Mr Conn himself is doing badly. Last year he received a thumping 40 per cent pay rise, taking his total salary package to £4.15million.

The public is rightly furious at being fleeced to fund such glaring corporate excess and the power companies, virtually all of whom have put up their prices, would do well to take heed of their anger. Theresa May made much of her energy price cap proposal before the election but, in a disappointing climbdown, has now passed responsibility for reforming this rapacious industry to the regulator Ofgem, whose appeasement of the power giants so far gives little grounds for confidence.

The Mail believes passionately in the free market, but when areas of that market become dysfunctional the Government must sometimes intervene to protect the consumer. If a cap is imposed, the Big Six will have only themselves to blame.