Gas and electricity have been summoned to meet Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi and Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng tomorrow morning, where they’ll be asked to submit a breakdown of expected profits and payouts as well as investment plans for the next three years
A Treasury source told the Sun, which first reported news of the meeting: “If you look back at what these firms were projected to make and what they actually brought in, it was beyond their wildest expectations. We are looking at options to go further and faster on those profits.”
The news comes as a report says that the existing debt to energy providers will immediately swallow up half of Rishi Sunak’s cost of living crisis payment to households.
According to price comparison site Uswitch, six million households owe an average of £206 to providers. This figure is 250pc more than in September last year.
Overall, households owe a record sum of £1.3bn to energy suppliers, even though summer is usually a time when households build up their credit ahead of higher winter bills.
Uswitch said the number of homes in credit had dropped from 11 million to nine million since April, and now eight million households have no credit balances at all, leaving them most exposed to higher bills.
Talking to the media thsi morning, Octopus Energy boss Greg Jackson said current plans for £400 help “clearly isn’t sufficient” and urged the Government to go further.
He said direct help on energy bills would not only help families survive the winter, but also help to tackle inflation.
Meanwhile acording to a leading think tank Families will pay an extra £30bn a year in tax as soaring inflation drags millions of people into higher income tax bands,
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said thatrRising prices and former chancellor Rishi Sunak’s freeze on tax thresholds have left workers facing a stealth raid on their earnings
