British Gas is to donate 10% of its profits to help customers cope with soaring bills for the “duration of the energy crisis”. Its owner Centrica says the money will go into an existing support fund – trebling help available this winter for the poorest customers. The firm, which has seen huge profits this year, said thousands of households would get grants of £250-£750. But this is a fraction of the support needed to tackle the crisis nationally. Earlier this week, one power boss put that cost closer to £100bn.
British Gas’s offer comes as the next energy price cap – which limits what suppliers can charge per unit of energy in England, Scotland and Wales – is set to be announced on Friday. The typical home energy bill is forecast to reach £3,553 a year in October – up from £1,971 currently – with further rises forecast for January. The government has promised a package of help but there have been warnings many people will face hardship without further support. Energy firms are also under pressure to help after posting soaring profits this year, amid record-high energy prices driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. British Gas owner Centrica saw adjusted operating profits of £1.3bn in the six months to June – up from £262m a year earlier – most of which came from oil and gas drilling.
However, the latest offer of support will be based on British Gas’s retail supply profits, which were just £98m. The firm, which is Britain’s leading energy supplier, serving more than nine million homes, said it had made an immediate donation of £12m to its Energy Support Fund. It added that it would continue to donate around 10% of its supply profits every six months “for the duration of the energy crisis, backdated to the start of 2022”.
Scottish Power has estimated the cost of shielding customers from increasing wholesale energy costs at £100bn. British Gas is saying they are the first to volunteer to put their hand in their own pocket to help struggling customers. Others say it is a drop in a very deep ocean of looming financial distress. This week rival power company Scottish Power’ proposed an industry-wide scheme to freeze energy bills for two years. Boss Keith Anderson said the £100bn plan would see the price cap frozen at the current level, with the government covering the difference between what people pay for the energy and how much it costs to supply their homes. The cost could then be repaid over the next 15 to 20 years and would be underwritten by the UK government.
Mr Anderson said he had submitted the idea to Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng who was “seriously considering” it. So far the government has promised a £15bn package of support for UK households. This includes a £650 one-off payment for eight million low-income households and a £400 grant for all homes. Plans to offer households discounts on electricity bills if they cut to use at peak times are also set to be announced by National Grid in the next few weeks.
‘Cost of the war’
However, this week the boss of supplier Octopus Energy said that government support would need to be doubled or energy bills are frozen to get hard-pressed customers through the crisis. Greg Jackson said: “You can’t expect the energy customers, or indeed the retailers to carry the cost of a war.” No 10 previously said there would be no new support offered before a new PM is appointed on 5 September. The current favourite to replace Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, has promised tax cuts and recently hinted at direct financial help for hard-pressed households. Her rival, Rishi Sunak, has said he would introduce more targeted support for households and has promised to reduce VAT on domestic energy bills from 5% to zero.
