Grinning Hunt: the Chancellor won’t help families cope with energy price increases in April – not because he can’t, but because he doesn’t want to.
Jeremy Hunt, Chancellor of the Exchequer and well-known misprint, has said he won’t provide any more help for households to pay for their energy bills.
This means the Tory government’s Energy Bills Support Scheme will end in March, just before the cap on our energy bills rises to an expected average of £3,000.
So we’re all facing a real-terms rise of £900 on our energy bills and Hunt will do nothing about it.
He has said,
“We constantly keep the help we can give families under review.
“But if you’re saying ‘Do I think we’re going to have the headroom to make a major new initiative to help people?’, I don’t think the situation would have changed very significantly from the Autumn Statement, which was just three months ago.”
This is not true.
According to Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis, when the announcement that the price guarantee would rise by 20 per cent was made in Hunt’s Autumn Statement, energy prices were significantly higher than they are now.
The current expectation is that in July, energy regulator Ofgem’s price cap (rather than the government’s price guarantee) will drop below both the £3,000 set to come in April and the £2,500 limit in force now, so we will all pay less.
This means the government is likely to save around £10 billion on what it was expecting to spend on the price guarantee at the time of the Autumn Statement.
That’s a pretty significant change, if you ask me!
Mr Lewis has written to the Chancellor, informing him of these expectations and calling on him to keep the price guarantee at its current level until July – a measure that will add only £1.5 billion to the current cost (leaving £8.5 billion in the kitty).
He has said this is better than inflicting poverty – and its devastating effects – on the people of the UK.
You can see him saying it here:
So it seems clear that Hunt has lied; he does have the headroom to help people with a new initiative, the situation has changed significantly and he can give more help to families.
He just doesn’t want to.
Remember this: the Conservative Chancellor would rather inflict poverty on you than do his job, which is to protect you from financial troubles that are no fault of your own.
Source: Jeremy Hunt says no more help for households despite energy bills increase in April
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