The Martin Lewis Money Show returned to screens this evening on ITV for a new series. Tonight’s episode was an “Energy Special” – so focused on everything and anything which could impact your energy bills
Martin Lewis has shared one way you can cut your energy costs for this winter.
The Martin Lewis Money Show returned to screens this evening on ITV for a new series. Tonight’s episode was an “Energy Special” and focused on things such as Ofgem’s price cap, Winter Fuel Payments, standing charges and smart meters. On tonight’s show, one member of the audience named Lynne asked Martin if she had “missed the boat” in fixing her energy tariff before the price cap lifted on October 1.
At the start of this month, Ofgem’s price cap rose by 10% to £1,717 a year for a typical dual-fuel household paying by direct debit. This is £149 more than the previous cap from July to September. Lynne asked: “I failed to fix my energy price cap when you told us to and I’m wondering if it’s actually too late, or am I going to be charged an arm and a leg?”
Martin first noted that everyone was now paying an arm and a leg for energy this winter, no matter what they do. He then explained what Ofgem’s price cap was and how it was now an energy supplier’s “bog standard, default domestic tariff”. This means if you are not fixed on a deal with your supplier, then you will likely be on the price cap.
The MSE founder said that a few weeks ago, a number of energy suppliers were offering much cheaper fixes than they are right now. Going forward, Martin noted that January’s price cap was set to rise again by around 1%. He added: “In January, it’s going to go up slightly by 1%. Now we are already four-fifths of the way through the assessment period for January. So that is a pretty solid prediction, and all the recent analyst predictions are going to go up in January.
“After that, it is more crystal ball gazing, but at the moment, it’s roughly staying the same in April. It’s going to come down perhaps a couple of percent in July, although it may go up in July and then up again in October. So that’s the picture over the next year.”
Martin told Lynne that he couldn’t tell her exactly when energy bills were going to become cheaper again. This is because it all depended on wholesale gas prices, and this an “extremely volatile” market. However, he did say that for every moment you wait you are paying more.
He added: “So the safe route is, if you’re going to fix, you may as well do it now and then close your eyes to see if fixes get cheaper in future. Because we just don’t know. You haven’t missed the boat, but you perhaps you have to sort of jump a little gap to get on it that you wouldn’t have wanted.” Martin then listed all of the deals on the market at the moment which were charging under the price cap. This included deals from some of the big energy names including E.ON Next, British Gas, Scottish Power, and Ovo Energy.
