Finally the Big Six energy oligopoly shows signs of breaking
Until we collectively vote with our feet and leave the Big Six, they will continue to rip us off
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Your support makes all the difference.Ever since the provision of heat and lighting to Britain’s homes was sold off to the private sector, it has been a controversial market. Critics point to eye-watering energy company profits, while domestic bills become ever more unaffordable. Winter becomes the cruellest season for vulnerable people hit by the higher prices.
Many pay the ultimate price and become another unnecessary winter death, their health failing as they shiver in homes they cannot afford to heat adequately. Last year, there were an estimated 43,900 excess winter deaths in England and Wales – a 15-year high. If just one is down to excess energy profits, that’s a statistic that shames us all. In recent days, the Big Six energy companies have come under renewed attack for not cutting domestic charges after it was revealed that wholesale gas and electricity prices in the UK are now at a five-year low, after falling 23 per cent in the past year.
The problem, critics claim, is that the energy giants work as an oligopoly, raising and lowering in unison the prices that they pass on to customers. They deny that, of course, and in doing so they could point to the fact that it has taken months for the major supplier E.On to follow British Gas’s move last summer and cut its gas prices, albeit by just 5.1 per cent. But the others – EDF, Npower, ScottishPower and SSE – will soon follow suit, confirming that competition is still failing consumers.
Encouragingly, there are now many independent suppliers which, together, have already snatched close to 15 per cent of the market from the so-called Big Six. For how much longer can they retain that title?
There is also a growing number of collective switching projects, from consumer rights organisations and even local authorities, which use bulk-buying power to get keener prices.
But with around three-fifths of UK households having never switched supplier, a big problem lies in consumer apathy or confusion. Until we collectively vote with our feet and leave the Big Six, they will continue, brazenly, to rip us off.
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