Around four million prepayment meter customers will no longer be charged more to receive their energy under reforms to be announced in the Chancellor's Budget on Wednesday. Jeremy Hunt is to end the ‘prepayment premium’ from July, saving more than four million households £45 a year on their energy bills, according to the Treasury.
Households on the pay-as-you-go meters, who are typically low income, currently pay more on average than Direct Debit customers because of firms managing the meters passing on costs to users. Mr Hunt said: "It is clearly unfair that those on prepayment meters pay more than others. We are going to put an end to that.
"From July four million households won't pay more than those on Direct Debits. We've already cut energy bills by almost half this winter, and this latest reform is proof again that we're always on the side of families."
