Britons struggling to afford to heat their homes and keep the lights on have accumulated more than £2bn in energy bill debt, the latest annual figures show. Gas and electricity bill arrears rocketed by just over a third, from £1.5bn to £2.1bn, in the year to April 2022 – just before the spring price-cap rise kicked in.
Liz Truss has promised to cap annual household energy bills at £2,500 for two years, after setting out a plan for the government to subsidise the big suppliers’ increased wholesale costs. But the Debt Justice campaign group – who produced the analysis based on the latest data from Ofgem – said many people were struggling to cope with already “astronomical” bills on top of rising living costs.
