Energy: breaking the chains

By Richard North - February 25, 2023

I think I might have already made the observation that, in one very strict and limited sense, the peoples of Ukraine are more fortunate than us in the UK. At least, notionally, they have a government which seems to be on their side, looking after their interests.

There is another random observation that I might make: while the Ukrainians were very obviously invaded by a hostile power with a view to taking control of the government, we seem to have missed the invasion bit, and moved straight to having a hostile power occupying the seat of government, without any of us noticing exactly when it happened – or even how.

Certainly, when it comes to the provision of domestic energy, no sane person in this country could run away with the idea that government was working in our best interests.

Not only does it load our energy bills with multiple “green” levies and subsidy charges, but it also conspires with the suppliers to permit predatory pricing that leaves a significant and growing proportion of our population unable to pay their bills.

That our government has unknowingly been captured by a hostile power can surely be the only explanation for the situation which is currently emerging. It seems that, despite the price of gas falling to pre-February 2022 levels, before Russia invaded Ukraine, from 1 April the average price of a combined domestic energy bill is set to increase from £2,500 to £3,000. As if the energy bills were not already higher than tolerable.

The rationale for this, apparently, is a combination of several things. First, on 1 April, the current price cap, set by the regulator Ofgem, is expected to drop from its current average level of £4,295 by about a £1,000.

That, in itself, does not set the actual price paid by domestic consumers as the government has been paying a subsidy to the energy suppliers to keep the average rate at £2,500. However, to coincide with the new price cap, the government is reducing the subsidy to an average of £295 per household, the effect being to raise the actual price paid to the £3,000 average figure.

What particularly jars about this new level is that, when gas prices were last at their current levels, average consumer energy bills were under £2,000. Thus, despite generators’ costs plummeting to pre-war levels, we not only end up paying massive increases but are forced to fund increases on the increases.

This is not helped by facile headlines in the likes of the Financial Times, which recently offered the glib headline: “European natural gas prices fall to 18-month low as energy crisis ebbs”, the offence given by the bland assumption that the energy crisis is ebbing.

To be fair – if one must – the “crisis” to which the paper refers is the prospect of supply shortages, which seem to have been averted by the mild weather, high levels of storage and consumption reductions.

For many domestic consumers though, the real crisis is the price of energy. For them – with the winter bills now coming up for payment – the crisis is about to intensify as they are presented with unpayable debt. And, when the next hike begins to bite, that will coincide with the increases in Council Tax and water charges.

Now that the energy suppliers have effectively declared war on their consumer base, with the complicity of government, what continues to amaze is the docility of public response, an example of which recently came from Matthew Parris in his Times column.

Having been sent what he describes as “humongous electricity bills”, with a false address, he recounts how he and his assistant “have spent literally hours on the telephone, mostly in queues, trying to get this put right”. Then, every promise to correct the address is followed by another bill with the wrong address.

While the energy suppliers are content to corral their customers into under-staffed call centres, leaving frustrated callers waiting hours for a connection, I cannot for the life of me understand why people are so willing to allow their patience to be abused, and their time wasted.

While the suppliers would prefer you to telephone their call centres or use their online chat rooms, they are required by the regulator to afford a multiplicity of contact routes, including letter and e-mail. I choose the latter, as it is cost-free and gives me a permanent record of exchanges, should I later need them as evidence.

That is not to say that the treatment of e-mail communications is any more efficient – far from it. Currently, I am 18 days into my latest complaint – this one of overcharging – and have yet to get past the preliminaries.

One little game played by the utilities is to place increasing bureaucratic barriers between themselves and the customer. The current ploy is to demand disclosure of full name, address and post code on an e-mail, before they will respond to a complaint.

Given that the e-mail address is registered on my web account with the supplier, and I provide the full account number each time, I see no need to supply this additional information. Further, we are constantly warned not to release personal details on electronic media, as communications are not secure and such details are much prized by scammers.

Thus, so far, I have refused to supply the information and we are at a stand-off with the supplier refusing to progress the complaint – whence I have ceased to pay them any money until the complaint is resolved.

The situation degenerated to high farce last week when a representative claiming to be from EDF called me on the phone one evening. This itself is interesting as the company enable customers to specify their preferred means of contact, and to block others. I have specifically asked not to be called by telephone. So what do they do? They contact me by telephone.

On a line pretending to originate in the UK, but actually a “cloud” service which will route calls from anywhere in the world while presenting a UK number on call ID, I get a female with an impenetrable South Asian accent, claiming her EDF identity and then demanding personal information before she will talk further.

When I advised her that I would not disclose personal information on the phone to an unknown person, she insisted that it was “protocol” that she asked for it. “Change your protocol”, I said, and cut the line.

Having grossly overcharged me on the basis of estimated meter readings, they are now e-mailing me with demands that I send them meter readings. But there is nothing in the contract (heavily weighted against the consumer) which requires me to submit meter readings, while the extortionate standing charges include the cost of meter readers.

The supplier, therefore, despite charging me for the service, now wants me to do their work for them – for free. But do I work for EDF? Do they pay me? If they want a reading, they know my address.

Again, what staggers me is the number of people who dutifully obey their masters, and submit meter readings. When did this start happening, that we became their slaves?

Essentially, as even Ofgem acknowledges, suppliers provide shit customer service. But if you want to see improvements, then stop tolerating it. If you want to see the end of rip-off pricing, make them bleed for their money.

That said, the Guardian is telling us that chancellor Jeremy Hunt is under increasing pressure to cancel the planned cut to energy bill support.

Research, we are told, shows that paying for heat and power will “eat up” nearly 10 percent of workers’ wages after the move in April, more than double the £107 a month typically paid in March last year.

National Energy Action predicts that the number of households in fuel poverty will rise from 6.7 million to 8.4 million from April, if the price guarantee increase is implemented. This should make a pretty strong constituency of the “pissed off” who will not be rushing to the polling booths to vote Conservative.

But, while that might have little effect, fighting back against shoddy service and rip-off charges is not something that should be ignored. Too often, we fashion our own chains.