Martin Lewis has called on the government to cancel its planned increase of the Energy Price Guarantee (EPG) or they risk carrying out 'national mental health harm'.
The money-saving expert who refers to himself as a 'campaigner' for energy consumers highlighted that it is not up to energy firms to increase the prices in this scenario, but the government themselves. It comes after the government previously announced its plans to raise the EPG by 20 per cent in April.
However, many people, including Mr Lewis, have criticised the decision to carry on with the rise following the announcement from energy regulator Ofgem that it would cut the price cap to £3,280 a year. Meanwhile, the EPG will rise from £2,500 to £3,000 a year for the average household.
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It's important to note that households will see an average rise, in this case, of £900 due to the fact that customers will have the £500 difference to pay as well as the £400 that is no longer being offered by the government's energy support scheme.
Previously, Mr Lewis wrote to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, stating that 1.7 million people in Britain will be thrown into hardship if prices do not freeze in spring. He reiterated this point on Times radio on Thursday (March 2).
Mr Lewis said: "I wrote to the chancellor three weeks ago asking him to not increase the energy price guarantee in April by 20 per cent as planned...what you have to understand is if we do increase it, it would result in an act of national mental health harm.
"People have been battered by successive rises in energy bills 14 per cent rises in broadband 7 per cent in water 5 per cent in council tax...to send millions of people another letter is bad for people's finances, it's bad for people's state of mental health, it's bad for consumer confidence, it's bad for business, it puts inflation up. I cannot understand from any form of rationale why they would continue to do it.
He later continued that he initially believed there would be a suspension to the rise and he asked in his letter to the Chancellor for the rise to be postponed for three months until July. He clarified that this would provide protection if wholesale rates rise and in the case they don't rise there would be no impact.
He continued: "It doesn't seem to me to make any sense politically for them not to do this. They have the wiggle room in the finances because they're spending so much less on the energy price guarantee than they though they were.
"I think it is likely to happen - it should be happening now because the problem of leaving it until the budget would be that the energy firms are legally obliged to notify people in advance of energy price rises. So people will get the letters and then if the budget cancels it they will then get letters not.
"I understand there is some political theatre if they do that in other words it makes sure everybody in the country knows that the prices were going up and the government just rescued them by not putting the prices up and maybe that's what they want but I prefer people to have the peace of mind now."
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