Martin Lewis is calling on Boris Johnson and the Tories' two candidates set to replace him as Prime Minister to "urgently intervene" with a plan amid worrying forecasts for energy bill increases in October.
The Money Saving Expert founder spoke to Radio 4 on Thursday morning in the wake of Cornwall Insight predicting a 77% increase to the energy cap in October 2023. If correct, that would mean customers on default tariffs will pay at least £3,500 a year on typical bills, up from the £1,971 set in April 2022.
Mr Lewis said the "zombie Government" must not wait until the conclusion of the Tory leadership contest to decide on help for households who will face the energy price cap rising to £3,500 or more. He dismissed the extra help promised by Mr Sunak and Ms Truss during their leadership bids as "trivial" in the face of bills which are set to be £2,300 a year higher than they were last October.
Mr Lewis tweeted: "Just done an interview on BBC Radio 4 Today, calling for [Rishi] Sunak, [Liz] Truss and Johnson to urgently meet (they are part of the same party after all) to come up with an action plan to urgently intervene in the disastrous predicted 77% energy price cap due October. This isn't the time for a flaccid Government."
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The energy cap will be reviewed again in January. Utilities consultancy BFY expects the cap on bills to hit £3,420 in October and rise to £3,850 between January and April 2023. The energy cap used to be updated twice a year, but there will now be a new price cap every three months going forward.
Then Chancellor and now Prime Minister candidate Rishi Sunak unveiled support measures in April to address rising bills. They included a £400 grant to every household. extra winter fuel payments for pensioners and cost of living support for households on means tested benefits. But at that point, the prediction for October’s price cap was just £2,800 – more than £600 lower than the latest forecast.
Mr Lewis said: "I've never seen anything like this. It's going to throw many households into a terribly difficult financial situation that will leave them making some awful choices."
Mr Lewis said the choice facing the Government is "you either have to cut prices for people or you have to put more money in their pockets, especially at the poorest level". But he added: "The problem is we have this zombie Government at the moment that can't make any big decisions.
"You have to look at the timing issues here. The formal announcement of the price cap will be towards the end of August. That would trigger companies to inform their customers about an increase in their direct debits.
"People will be panicking, it will be desperate - they are already panicking right now. By September 5 when we have a new prime minister, we will already be absolutely in the mire of this."
In a message to Mr Sunak, Ms Truss and Mr Johnson, he said: "Please, go and sit in a room together, make a collective decision now of what help you can give and make an announcement to forestall the mental health damage that is coming across the country."
He said: "There needs to be action now, you are all in the same party, you should be able to work out some unifying policy, something for heaven's sake. Sit in a room, decide what you are going to do together, take a little bit of collective action and give the panicking people across the country a little bit of respite from this."
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