British Gas Price Rise

[Everhelpful]

Don't know how to do link but,according to Sky News British Gas are raising Electricity Prices by !0.4% and Gas by 8.4%.on 23 November.Must be near Winter again.

[beegeebee]

Of course one tends to forget the owners of the power companies have their prices capped by their respective governments so, where do you expect them to make their PROFITS? And also remember when these companies were de-nationalised, Government held a 'Golden Share' to ensure they could decide who could purchase said company(s) outright. Guess who forced the removal of said 'Golden Share' ?

[LazyGun]

removal of the golden share. Dunno what you are talking about - pray tell.

capping power company prices by government - examples please.

They seem to be making good enough profits right now if they can afford multimillion pound salaries and bonuses to board members.

What was your point again?

[marje]

I've just changed to a fixed rate tariff from a variable one. Will keep an eye on it tho' to make sure rate doesn't change.

[bazwillrun]

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheapenergyclub

will do most of the donkey work for you if you cant make sense of it all

[EdgeofDarkness]

Got off British Gas straight away. Research energy communes - there may be one in you area. Mine has reduce my energy bill by 30%, that's before the recent rises (and my payments are fixed for the year). Don't worry about unpatriotic behaviour - it's a long time since British Gas were really 'British.' And don't do Scottish companies either. The call centre staff are racist, and next year they won't even be in the UK...

[weecalf]

Government has said we should switch providers .Is this what government should be saying .

[factor-fiction]

Well it makes sense to me to suggest you switch providers. For all sorts of reasons some people change regularly to get the best deal but a very high figure (over 50% I recall) have never changed. Martin Lewis and others have regularly shown that significant savings can be made by shopping around. And many still pay by the more expensive methods- mainly quarterly billing- when cheaper rates are available for DD , online billing etc.
The companies know that the majority of people will not shop around so will pay the new prices.

The pricing structure are still deliberately complex. I have a spreadsheet that calculates usage month by month and takes account of night rates/day rates, primary rates, secondary rates etc, but it shouldn't have to be like this. The regulator needs to be more active.

I wonder how our energy prices in the UK compare with the rest of Europe. Does anyone know? My guess is that prices are high all over, except perhaps for those in Eastern Europe that benefit most from fracking

[Gromit]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/