Friday, November 12, 2010

Privatised British Gas hikes gas and electricity prices by 7%

The Guardian reports:

British Gas today announced it is putting its prices up by 7% for both gas and electricity from 10 December, making it the second major energy supplier to raise its prices in recent weeks.

It is estimated the increase in standard and variable tariffs will affect around 8 million customers, with the price increases adding £53 to annual gas bills and £29 to electricity bills.

Adam Scorer, director of external affairs at Consumer Focus, said: "British Gas and other suppliers respond to forward energy prices, and that will be their argument that price rises are needed. However, wholesale prices are around half of their peak in 2008, and yet in the same period customer's prices were cut by less than 10%.
"Consumers will feel that suppliers didn't make cuts when conditions allowed it, but are covering their profit margins as wholesale prices nudge up. At a time when there are reports of a gas glut it seems that consumers take on all the risk in this market."

3 comments:

Andy Armitage said...

And isn't its parent, Centrica, on course to make a £2.2bn profit in 2010? Yes, I really do feel sorry for British bloody Gas!

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