Gas and electricity bills will go up by an average £500 a year from April, Jeremy Hunt said as he raised the minimum price for a unit of energy that homeowners will be charged. The new rates will mean that an average home will pay around £3,000 a year for energy - up from £2,500 now.
Without government support, bills would have been likely to hit £3,740 a year in April, according to consultancy Cornwall Insight. There will be additional payments for people on lower incomes to help them pay their energy bills. Mr Hunt also announced an extra £900 support for people on benefits, an extra £300 for pensioners and an extra £150 for people on disability benefits towards bills.
There is only a cap on the price of a unit of energy not on the total amount that a household will pay. The government pays the difference between the cap and the price of energy paid by the providers. A family living in a five-bedroom house might expect to see a bill of about £4,200, which is a rise of about £700.
