Some families face price increases once unthinkable from April (Picture: PA/Shutterstock)
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt ending the government’s Energy Price Guarantee (EPG) from April has left families ‘terrified’, anti-poverty groups warn.
Prime minister Liz Truss in September said ordinary households will pay no more than £2,500 for gas and electricity annually for the next two years.
But don’t expect to be paying that for long, Hunt told Brits today.
Hunt said the support would be reviewed so it cost ‘significantly less than planned’ and won’t run for all households from April 2023.
He said the vulnerable would continue to be shielded from soaring wholesale energy prices but provided no details of what this would look like.
The lack of clarity has added yet another worry to already anxious families, anti-poverty groups told Metro.co.uk.
The Chancellor said the massive state intervention in energy prices will come to an end. What follows is uncertain (Picture: Simon Walker/HM Treasury)
After all, concerns over paying energy bills won’t just disappear in April.
Among those hardest hit will be the nearly four million children living in poverty, End Child Poverty chair Joseph Howes said.
‘Once again the needs of children and young people living in poverty have seemingly been ignored by those in power,’ he told Metro.co.uk.
‘Right now families are having to choose between heating their homes or eating, are sending children to school in unwashed uniforms or are heading to food banks for nappies for their babies.
‘The truly terrible situation facing these families should be at the centre of decision-making in government.’
One of Liz Truss’ first policies was freezing gas and electricity rates (Picture: PA)
Emma Revie, chief executive at the Trussell Trust, which runs Britain’s largest network of food banks, said she is cautiously hopeful.
‘We welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to review how best to target support on energy bills and we look forward to seeing the detail on this soon,’ she said.
‘However, this alone will not prevent households needing to rely on food banks this winter, and we are calling on the government to urgently lay out plans for a comprehensive package of support for the most vulnerable.’
The trust is delivering 50% more food parcels than it did during the coronavirus pandemic, Revie added, and this will only get worse in the months ahead.
The EPG would have limited the amount energy suppliers can charge until September 2024 in a bid to shield Brits from the tsunami of energy price hikes.
Tough choices for downtrodden families won’t just vanish after April, groups say (Picture: Getty Images)
And the first of the big waves was big. The annual price for electricity and gas for a typical household was set to soar from £1,971 to £3,549 from October 1.
Now, this cap will only be in place for six months just to cover the winter.
Consumer rights watchdog Which? warned the shortened energy cap is the latest in a string of nauseating U-turns that have plunged families into uncertainty.
‘The chaos and U-turns of recent weeks have heaped confusion and uncertainty on consumers – who were already facing the worst cost of living crisis for decades,’ the charity’s policy and advocacy director Rocio Concha said.
But as much as the cap will help downtrodden Brits in the meantime, the government must consider how to hold bills back in the ‘long term’.
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‘The government must also go all out to turbocharge the adoption of energy efficiency measures, such as home insulation,’ she said.
Rebecca McDonald, the chief economist for the poverty research group Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said it’s not just the markets that need ‘stabilising’.
Families do too. Especially those who rely on social welfare cheques which the government has yet to clarify if they will be increased in line with inflation.
‘The country can’t afford another self-inflicted wound so it is crucial that we learn lessons from the past and don’t cut back on the services people need and which could easily be overwhelmed if hardship increases,’ she said.
For Child Poverty Action Group chief executive Alison Garnham, the message the Chancellor has signalled to families is crystal clear.
‘Families up and down the country are now terrified about how they will get through the tough times ahead,’ she said.
‘It’s frankly unthinkable that the poorest kids and families in our society will be forced to pay for the economic mistakes of this government.’
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‘The country can’t afford another self-inflicted wound.’