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00:03Tomorrow morning regulator Ofgem will announce the new energy price cap and thankfully it's
00:09expected to fall by around 7% good news but here's the big twist this isn't just a routine
00:17drop it's driven by an underlying policy change and that means if you're on a fix your price
00:24will drop too often by even more than the price cap this is the biggest shake-up in the energy
00:30market we've seen for a few years i want to break down what it means for you how much you'll
00:35pay
00:35should you fix spoiler yes and lots more plus we're joined by the Ofgem boss Jonathan Brearley
00:42welcome Jonathan who's agreed to take your questions and yes we will be talking standing
00:47charges then in brief news you can use the premium bomb rates being cut cheap rail cards
00:53nhs workers discounts and new broken smart meter compensation let's do it
01:06where do you want us everyone and jeanette's back i'm back all right you got injured at the winter
01:14olympics i got injured at the winter olympics but it doesn't matter i missed you i am back everybody
01:18thank you so much we missed you too well tonight we would love to hear from you so please do
01:24get in
01:25touch with your questions all the usual ways are on the screen right now and to start us off on
01:29energy
01:30this week we've got alexandra in the audience hiya xandra you've got a question for martin hiya um
01:34as energy prices are set to fall is it worth leaving our fixed term tariff at the moment as we
01:40have no uh
01:41early exit fee the the simple answer is if you find a cheaper fix yes but i want to come
01:47back to
01:47that because i sort of want to explain a few things first if that's okay so let me get straight
01:51to my
01:51big briefing and i'm coming back to you
01:55okay so the big change coming is about energy policy so the best place i think to start this is
02:02what makes up your energy bill and this one's based on the price cap and it's averaged so the
02:06exact numbers because it was too many decimal points so let's start well the biggest single
02:11cost is the wholesaling sale cost that's the underlying cost of gas and electricity you know
02:16what's actually going in there and actually when we talk about big profits in the industry it's the
02:20companies who provide those who made the big profits far more than the retail arms although some
02:25of them are the same companies after that we get what's called the network cost so this is
02:30transmission and distribution of energy around the country now it's important to say because we're
02:36coming on to policy in a minute that this has been increasing due to as we've moved to more
02:42renewables smaller less centralized generation like wind so costs of transporting energy because it's
02:48in more different places have gone up and there's also more electricity demand which means you know
02:53from electric vehicles that means they're having to shift it so i don't want to sort of look at that
02:58and say it's just network costs and infrastructure so there is some policy decisions that are feeding
03:02into that's one of the reasons that energy bills have risen we then get into the policy and government
03:07schemes the levies the renewables obligation paying the feed-in tariff on solar paying the eco scheme
03:13the warm home discount you know that goes in our bills so people can get the 150 pounds off and
03:18then
03:18you get into sort of the more obvious ones operating and industry costs you know customer service
03:22billing meters and all that type of stuff that's about 13 percent uh vat unpaid bill debt so for people
03:29who can't pay the energy firms are allowed to have extra money because they have to cover the cost of
03:32those 2.6 profit is what they're allowed but there is this headroom buffer zone which is there for
03:40contingencies but can sometimes move into profit so that is how your bill is made up right that is what
03:45when you're generally paying this is on the price cap but it's roughly similar for others now this is the
03:49change that's coming the first thing that we're going to see it's all in the policy and government
03:54schemes is this there we go let me do it again one more time yeah there we go so the
04:03eco scheme is
04:05being ended and it's ending in march it's being closed down that currently makes about three and a
04:10half percent on our bills and it is just being got rid of so it won't be paid anymore so
04:15that's three and
04:16a half percent the next is the renewable obligation now 75 of the cost of this is being taken off
04:23energy bills and will be paid by the state so that could be through debt or it could be general
04:28taxation but it will no longer be on our energy bills so this is basically and it's something that
04:32i think is actually a good thing we're shifting policy costs away from energy bills which is what
04:37they call regressive because you know many lower income people don't pay pay quite a lot of a
04:42proportion of what higher income people pay on it and it's going into the state the tax system
04:47and that's another four percent that is disappearing off energy bills which means for every single bill
04:54payer everybody with every type of energy tariff from april the effect of this alone and there are
05:01other things that move up and down as well so you're going to see bills roughly seven and a half
05:06percent
05:06lower now the government calls this 150 pounds off energy bills it isn't because what the actual
05:12mechanism that is being used is a change in the unit rates for gas and electricity we're going to
05:18see the unit rate of electricity drop three and a half pence per kilowatt hour which is roughly 13
05:23cheaper so they know upstairs my earpiece is gone i can't hear you and we're going to see the gas
05:28price
05:29drop 0.33 pence for each kilowatt hour use which is about a six percent cut so higher users will
05:36see a
05:36bigger gain and those who are electricity only and higher users will see the biggest gain of all now
05:42if you're just wondering why how six percent and thirteen percent equate to an average seven and a
05:46half percent that's because this is unit rates and there's also the standing charge and the standing
05:51charge isn't being changed which is why it sort of averages out here and there's one more thing you're
05:56following me good there's one more thing that i want to explain which is this is also changing in policy
06:02which is the warm home discount cost currently 2.6 percent of your bill is being moved off the
06:08standing charge and onto unit rates so the standing charge will relatively go down and unit rates will
06:15relatively go up but unit rates are coming down because of the other bit anyway and now it doesn't
06:20mean standing charges will come down but yeah i'm going to ask him about that in a moment but it
06:24does mean
06:25for this unit alone everything else being equal they will come down but that is still being paid so i'll
06:29put
06:29it back in there there we go that hole is what is driving all the changes this april that is
06:38why
06:38bills are coming down because of the policy moves either being got rid of or shifted onto general
06:43taxation if you like okay so anna's got a question on this she's sent this in for you she's asking
06:47i'm
06:48on a standard variable energy plan on direct debit should i still change to a fixed price plan short answer
06:56yes long answer is the graph this is the graph so here you go this is my energy price cap
07:03graph
07:04that's the energy price cap underlying wholesale rates are going there now look the energy price cap
07:10is the tariff is the system that nearly two-thirds of you watching are on in england scotland and wales
07:16it doesn't apply to northern ireland this is where you're on your provider's bog standard default tariff
07:22let's just do the big names for a second that are available there so if you're on any of these
07:27i'll
07:27go in and hopefully we can close in on this so you can read them if you're on those you
07:30are on the price
07:31cap if you're on a fix if you're on a specialist tariff or an ev tariff you're not on the
07:36price cap
07:36your your price is not capped but all of these it's that man over there jonathan braley who sets
07:41the price that you pay and that's what we're going to hear tomorrow is changing on the 1st of april
07:45but let's do tomorrow's news today here you go so what are we expecting to see tomorrow well because
07:52of that seven and a half percent cut in policy we're expecting to see the price cap drop by 6
07:58.9
07:58percent tomorrow the actual range of predictions from the analysts i use are 6.7 to 7.1 percent
08:04am i right so i'm not allowed to pre-announce but as you know at this stage the analysts are
08:09never far
08:09wrong so this is pretty close this is pretty close this is pretty close and importantly what the
08:14analysts aren't saying almost certainly the unit rate will be dropping because that's where the
08:19policy costs have come in will the standing charge drop too so this is mainly a unit rate story i'd
08:24say
08:24the standing charge is staying roughly the same okay 6.8 6.9 percent drop on unit rates not much
08:30change on standing charge they might use gas and electricity in between them is what i'd guess on
08:33the back of what he's just said so hopefully we're pretty close to what's going to be happening tomorrow
08:37something interesting though the price cap is based on an assessment period a three-month assessment
08:43period here's the assessment period for this april's price cap as you can see it included this
08:49spike here and actually puts it slightly higher than the last one so it's worth noting if we hadn't
08:54had the policy change this would have happened we would expect to see prices rising in april by 1.6
09:03now the reason i point this out is because while the government's been talking about prices dropping 150
09:08quid on a typical bill it won't be quite that much because that's everything else being equal but
09:13everything else isn't equal network costs are going up and the underlying wholesale rates have gone up
09:19so it'll just be shy of the 150 quid average savings for people although of course as i said before
09:24it depends on what you use but let's move on from what isn't happening to what is predicted to
09:30happen for the rest of the year because this is where it gets interesting
09:33the important thing about this policy change and why i say this isn't just one of those every three
09:38month changes because that has gone off well the renewable obligation for three years and eco have
09:42gone off permanently that should be in all our future bills so as you can see the base is moving
09:47lower in
09:48april but then it's staying around that base and currently the further out we go the more crystal ball
09:53gazing it is for the rest of the year so the question that we're being asked up there and the
09:58question
09:59alexandria was sort of asking me before i'm on a standard variable energy plan on direct debit
10:02should i still change to a fixed price plan and i'm about to show you something i have never had
10:07on the graph before when talking about fixed prices very exciting for me so let's just have a look
10:15this is where the cheapest fix is
10:19so it's called a fix you lock in at today's price it's the cheapest on the market it's 14
10:26cheaper than the current price cap but because fixed rates will get cheaper too because of the
10:32policy costs on the first of april in fact they will get slightly more cheaper because they haven't
10:37got the other variable costs going into it then the differential between the price cap and the
10:43cheapest fixes will actually increase a little bit so if you locked in on a fix now at 14 cheaper
10:49maybe by april it'll be 15 cheaper and then if the predictions and these are only predictions
10:54that one's pretty nailed close this is this is obviously can change with you know ukraine situation
11:00or whatever is you'll save quite substantially by fixing now which is why i call it a pants cap
11:06not the price cap because it isn't a good tariff okay did that make sense again good thank you
11:15oh now i should know most fixes will do this i need to take you to a table i showed
11:22you this table in
11:23november this is the november version of the table it's what is actually going to happen to fix prices
11:27let me update it and it gets better there you go as you can see with all of those providers
11:34we'll
11:34come to the one that doesn't in a moment all of them will reduce their existing fixed rates and all
11:39of
11:39them are doing it on the first of april so they have all confirmed that and need to point out
11:43the grays
11:44the grays here are small companies they've not done anything wrong they're small companies so they
11:48were not on the eco scheme remember the eco scheme is one of those policy costs disappearing obviously
11:54as they weren't on it you weren't paying for it and therefore it's not going so if you run a
11:58fix with
11:58one of these it won't drop by the same amount as other fixes it will be a little less than
12:03half or
12:04around half will drop compared to the other fixes that were going into that as for too low energy well
12:09we were awaiting response they won't respond to me do you know what's happening with too low we're going
12:13to chase them but we expect them to do the same thing okay so hopefully they will do the same
12:16thing
12:17fabulous now dan dan's got a question on this dan's asking i recently signed up to a new energy fix
12:23and
12:23the company hasn't confirmed if my standing charge and unit rate will go down when the price cap goes
12:28down do they not have to do this considering they fixed my rate for the year yeah it is frustrating
12:33that
12:33it's me telling you that this is going to happen and people aren't hearing it from their energy firms
12:36what are their communication requirements jonathan so look they do have to give notice when
12:40they're going to change their tariff usually that's about six weeks so we'd expect them before april to
12:44be really clear with their customers but what they've said to us which is what you've got on the chart
12:47there is they are going to pass on these savings so i mean you should expect your bill whatever tariff
12:54you are on to be getting lower on the first of april okay um alexandra your question we're going to
12:59come back to you remind me what it was question and is it worth leaving a fixed rate tariff at
13:04the
13:04moment so considering they're going to come down as you can see your price is going to drop yeah right
13:09so for me it's quite simple if you've got no exit penalties go and do a comparison if you can
13:13find
13:13a cheaper fix than the fix that you're on you may as well lock in on a cheaper fix if
13:16you can't you
13:17may as well stay on the cheap price that you're on right now so it's actually you know quite a
13:20simple
13:20one let's have a look though at what you can do in the fixing market right now now i said
13:26the price
13:26cap is still a pants cap ditch it if you can you agree with that don't you 100 agree you
13:30know we want
13:31people in the market finding the best tariff for them yeah the price cap's meant to be a backstop for
13:34those
13:35who don't switch you're meant to be switching you're meant to be taking advantage of that
13:38competitive market too many people are on that fixing is the simple option you get peace of mind
13:43that your rate is locked in that's not the amount you pay if you use more you'll pay more even
13:47on
13:48the fix you use less you'll pay less but the rate you pay for each unit is locked in your
13:52cheapest
13:52depends on where in the country you are and your usage so use a whole of market by default comparison
13:56site these are just averages don't trust these because it varies on where you are
14:00and you don't need to know your usage when you do that these days it's dead easy they know that
14:05already so you just go on there tell them what you do and they'll tell them who your cheapest is
14:09remember most of these fixes will drop by eight eight to nine percent in april so the prices you got
14:14there will actually they're going to get cheaper let's have a look the top three
14:19cheapest at the moment i should note some comparison sites have special deals and there are also some
14:23special deals if you get broadband or if you go and get a gas and electricity boiler cover with i've
14:29excluded all those just to give you a simple example you've got outfox fuse and ecotricity
14:33are the three cheapest fuse is one of those where the fix won't drop by as much as others so
14:37probably
14:38over the next year ecotricity might actually be cheaper so that's worth factoring in when you
14:42do a comparison remembering which ones you go for uh as you can see many people always ask this you
14:47don't need a smart meter for the first two if you haven't got a smart meter you can get the
14:50first
14:51two you can't get the third i put octopus in because it's the cheapest fix with no early exit
14:56penalties so you're totally free to leave if you want but you will be paying for that effectively
15:00an edf is the cheapest fix you can get if you're on smart prepay but there's another tariff i'm
15:06coming to in a moment that i think is a lot better than that because it's really not that cheap
15:09the
15:09cheapest smart prepay deal yeah okay well jen's looking to clarify this you sent me this comment in
15:13is the price cap the same as the octopus tracker tariff thinking to fix now but as i'm on the
15:19tracker
15:19will there be a difference in reduction of pricing overall the octopus tracker tariff is a
15:25specialized time of use tariff it is not a price cap tariff i tend to call it a sophisticated user
15:31tariff so i hope this isn't patronizing jen but if you're on that tariff that's a tariff for people
15:37who know what they're doing and i'm a little worried that you don't know it's not a price cap
15:40which is concerning but i'm coming to actually explain what it is in a moment let me move on to
15:44the other options outside fixing that some people should be looking at if you are a low user
15:50well it was already about but they've just changed the price edf simply tracker basically
15:55tracks the price cap moves with the price cap but it's got a hundred pounds a year cheaper standing
16:00charges until today until about an hour ago in fact it was 50 pounds a year it's now gone up
16:04to 100
16:05pounds a year and so if you are a low user i'd say using less than about 80 pounds a
16:10month worth of
16:11energy on direct debit that will probably beat the cheapest fixes otherwise cheaper fixes will beat it
16:16but if you're on smart prepay there's nothing close to it at the moment it's just basically
16:20just the price cap but 100 quid cheaper so you may as well have a look at it if you're
16:23on prepay that
16:24isn't smart there's there's no switchable tariffs and actually if you're on prepay that's one of the
16:28areas moving to a smart meter is often really strong for various reasons if you've got an electric
16:33car there are specialist tariffs there are some where you just get a normal fix and then you get a
16:37cheap rate for plugging in your electric car ovo and scottish power the add-on tariffs the rest you get
16:42a
16:43high rate during the day a low rate at night try and shift as much as your energy usage to
16:47as night
16:47as possible sophisticated users you've got these time of use tariffs the agile changes every half
16:52hour but sometimes in the summer it can pay you to use energy at night but it's electricity at night
16:58big demand on that now isn't it huge 70 increase yeah and also the tracker type which talks about the
17:03price change every day they're winding me up so i'm going to go quick you've got solar panels
17:06if you're exporting over 20 percent of your energy use you will probably be better off to get a solar
17:12panels and the solar panel guarantee with the same company you get your energy from if you're using less
17:18just stick with the stick with the cheapest energy provider final question on this will we see the
17:23prices of all these drop on the first of april too so short answer yes companies have promised us
17:28promised us whatever tower if you're on they will pass on the levy savings but quite complicated how they
17:32do it on these it won't be simple exactly exactly okay so you'll be monitoring to make sure they do
17:36it we will okay thank you fabulous okay jonathan might take a deep breath because in the next part
17:42dedicated to your questions martin and jonathan brulee of the boss of off gem
17:46will answer your questions including those on standing charges we'll see you then
18:02welcome back to our energy special we've already been through the fact that the price cap is likely
18:07to drop seven percent from the first of april we'll hear that on the news tomorrow and that fixes
18:12are dropping two by seven percent and this is a great time to fix you should be saving quite a
18:16serious whack a couple of hundred quid for most people but we're going to move on to questioning
18:20the boss of off gem in a moment you know what's coming in yeah lots has been coming in but
18:23i do
18:23want to kick this session off with you and jonathan the question from terry in the audience terry
18:27got a question for martin oh yes martin in 2025 actually it's not for martin it's for jonathan go
18:34on you take it away mate in 2025 off gem promised that all major suppliers would introduce one low fixed
18:46tariff yes low standing low standing charge tariff what has happened it's now coming to the end of
18:54february and we've seen absolutely nothing so he's totally right you promised in january it would be
18:59a price cap low or no standing tariff version then you said it wouldn't be in the price cap and
19:04we'd
19:04have it by early this year and yet nothing what's going on so look two two things to recognize first
19:10of all i know how strongly people feel about standing charges so it's one of the biggest ever responses we
19:14had to our consultation and i know it's frustrating for many people and we have taken more time than we
19:20thought but let me explain why you know the problem is this stuff pays for the wires that connect us
19:25to
19:25the grid it pays for those costs that can't be moved and if we move stuff off the standing charge
19:30onto the unit rate then some people are going to get be better off and some people are going to
19:34be
19:34worse off now we came forward with both of those options and it wasn't just the companies that were
19:38unsure about this the consumer group said to us they really worry we're going to make some people worse
19:43off what i can say today though is we have a new large-scale pilot with four companies so let
19:49me
19:49just list them british gas octopus edf and eon who are going to come forward with at least 150 pounds
19:56off their standing charge their unit rate will go up as a result when and that will come out from
20:01april
20:01okay so we're getting to a point where we have we want to test this at scale because we want
20:06to
20:06know what happens for example if you're a customer that goes on that tariff and that tariff makes you
20:11worse off this has been tested there this has been death of a thousand cuts though it's gone totally
20:15i mean the problem with it not being on the price cap is all those vulnerable people who never switch
20:19will not have access to this what are you going to do about them well look first of all we
20:22want to
20:22see how this works for that 150 000 customers then we'll see how we change the rules and regulations
20:26later on but what we what the consumer group said to me when we proposed putting it in the price
20:31cap
20:32not all the consumer groups well a lot of them though some of the ones we really trust this is
20:35advice
20:36for example consumer scotland some of the disability charities all of us have urged us to be
20:40cautious so we want to try it at scale see what happens to customers and then take it from there
20:46i think the thing about the standing charge is you say it's fixed costs well when i go into a
20:51shop
20:52and i buy a book they don't say to me you have to pay five pounds a month to be
20:57a member of the shop
20:58and then you pay five pounds for the book they say ten pounds for a book and all our fixed
21:02costs are
21:02covered by the book the concept that you have to cover fixed costs by a fixed charge is not how
21:08it
21:08works across all other sectors and and i don't understand why you do it in this sector so there
21:13are some utilities that are quite similar so that used to be the way we pay for our phones for
21:16example
21:17that used to be used to be the way we it's also the way we pay for our water for
21:20example so we have
21:21all of these i wouldn't want to compare you to water i mean i want you know i agree no
21:25i agree but
21:26that's why we want to take this slowly so we're not saying we're not doing anything but we want to
21:30test
21:30this at scale see how people respond and take it from there you know you said you want to come
21:34back are you dumb go on i would agree with uh with martin that it doesn't fully work across
21:43the sec or it works in some sectors but not in all sectors and i don't think it works in
21:50the energy
21:50sector the standing charge is just too high every day every day even if you don't use electricity
22:00you get hit by standing charge it doesn't seem fair paula
22:08paula two off jen boss why is standing charge so high i have one of the highest
22:12where i live in merseyside it's near to all sorts of energy sources plants why do i pay more for
22:17where
22:17she lives so we talked to each other this is about regional variance in standing charge well
22:21as i said it pays for things like the wires and the wires are different costs in different areas
22:25but we came on this show last year and i was telling you martin the government were considering
22:29whether or not we pay different prices in different regions across the board they've decided not to do
22:34that so we will look again at whether or not it's right that we'd have this differential between
22:37there we already do we already do have slight differentials but it's not huge it was going to be
22:41big exactly so now i think the point i just come back to come back to you i do understand
22:44that
22:45but we just want to make sure that for example families who have electrical heating who are low
22:49incomes some of the poorest families with some of the most expensive heating aren't made a lot worse
22:54off that's why we want to try it at scale and take it from there i'm so sorry jonathan i
22:58need to try
22:58and put on let me just do a couple more uh i think i need to reflect some of the
23:01things that said out
23:02there alan got in touch and said for off gem wth that's not what he wrote uh simply succinctly enough
23:10stop pegging it all onto the gas and stop insane standing charges andrew off gem boss when is the
23:15electricity price going to be decoupled from gas so they're both about that decoupling over time
23:20as we build out more renewables they are all going on a fixed price the more renewables we build the
23:25less the price depends on gas but our prices are going up because of renewables the network costs are
23:29going up because of renewables so the network costs are going up and of course we still pay a fixed
23:32price
23:33to get that wind power on the system but that takes us away from gas and the truth is when
23:37you people
23:38ask me the question well is it more or less expensive well that depends on the future of
23:41the gas price and as we know that's really hard to predict so if i go back to 2020 martin
23:46everyone
23:47was telling me gas is really stable and fixed and then we saw russia four years ago today russia
23:52invaded ukraine that's what's transformed our energy system and that's why things are more expensive
23:57steve is there any chance of prices returning back to what they were pre-ukrainian conflict i would
24:02love to be able to say yes to that that's about 70 less than where that is a huge shift
24:07what
24:07we are doing is making sure the system costs as little as possible and then we're working with
24:11government and the reason why today or tomorrow in fact is a big day is for the first time the
24:16chancellor is taking some of those costs off the bill putting them onto tax now martin you campaign
24:20for that i think that's a better thing because you're spreading costs more progressively than simply
24:25loading onto low-income customers ray why did they say prices have gone up due to wholesale prices rising
24:30and charges more but at the same time their profits have shot up sure if their prices have gone up
24:35they
24:35would pay more and their profits would be roughly the same is it that we're being ripped off as usual
24:39well you know one of the things i always have to explain is what ofgem can do and what we
24:43can't do
24:44now without a doubt when those gas prices went up the people who get gas out the ground
24:48made a huge amount of money i mean they were paying five or ten pence a unit and selling it
24:52for
24:52a pound or more but we don't regulate those those are set by prices internationally the companies that
24:57we regulate so your british gases your octopuses your edfs those companies we regulate their profits
25:03very closely and as your chart showed earlier that's about two and a half british gas made huge
25:07profits centric can make huge profits but they have two parts of the company the bit we regulate
25:12doesn't paul compared with other european countries why is our electricity so expensive so
25:17on business we're probably the highest on the rest we're nearly the highest not quite the highest why
25:21so look two main reasons first of all is we are very dependent on gas in this country so we
25:25have
25:25suffered more as those gas prices have gone up and they're still harder than they used to be
25:29secondly we are investing in the system to try and change it and that adds costs so adding costs for
25:34example for networks now also other countries split the way we pay for their energy very differently
25:39so france for example loads more onto the taxpayer and again that's why tomorrow is such a big day
25:44for the first time we're actually saying maybe we should share this burden a bit more fairly
25:48patricia back in february 2025 i asked the question as to why the price cap changed every three months
25:54from what used to be every six months and why was that on my behalf martin you asked the question
25:59to ofgem and his answer was we want to look at whether we can go back to six monthly well
26:03since
26:03that time nothing more has been said can you press them again please i'm pressing so look um we we
26:10think
26:10hard about this we know that some customers prefer things changing three monthly so when we asked
26:14customers in the study they said well actually we prefer the price being as linked as possible to the cost
26:19that's there others prefer it to be longer we are looking in a month's time to come out with a
26:23whole
26:23set of reforms on the price cap again to consider this question but what we've got to make sure is
26:28that we charge people as little as possible if it gets longer because there's more volatility there
26:32that might drive up bills so we just want to make sure we get the balance right okay that's all
26:35we've
26:36got time for in this part we might have a couple more in the next part jonathan thank you very
26:38much
26:39and thank you for your question too sir jonathan martin thank you very much coming up in our final part
26:43more of your questions plus in news you can use premium bonds rate drop and cheap rail cards we'll see
26:48you
26:56in four however did you come to this the lady watch the full series now on stv player
27:07hello welcome back to the last part of our energy special uh we're going to go through a few more
27:12questions i've got news you can use jeanette what have you got it is so so busy online people are
27:16very
27:16happy you're doing this but we're going to start with an energy question it's coming from david and
27:20he's saying i'm on a fixed tariff my last statement was in july and i haven't had a bill since
27:25my account
27:26is 1300 pounds in credit and i have said i will continue the direct debit but i've asked for a
27:32thousand pounds refund until they produce a statement their response was they can't do this
27:36without having a statement well that that seems very bizarre to me now look it's fine to be a month
27:41or two in credit with your direct debit so if you're paying 200 quid a month 400 quid in credit
27:45this time of year isn't bad above that you want the money back and you've got a right to it
27:49now
27:49assuming you've done a meter reading you should always do an up-to-date meter reading they shouldn't
27:52be holding on to your funds well we've got the regulator here what's going on so the rules are clear
27:57you can ask for your credit balance back the only thing they can say they hold on to
28:00is any energy you've used that you've not yet paid for so they might want a meter reading if they
28:04haven't done a statement though which is why he hasn't got well he's built that out of order so so
28:09my view
28:10to have 1300 pounds credit balance unless you're using a huge amount of energy you're likely to
28:14have a lot of that due back so if you don't get joy from the supplier then go to the
28:18ombudsman and
28:19make sure you get resolution go to the energy ombudsman make a formal complaint and go to the
28:22energy ombudsman unless you give your money back and let us know and we'll tell him what company it
28:26is and maybe you can look at it too my team will be on it yeah um got this comment
28:30that's coming from
28:30gareth for you okay please can you confirm if back billing rules are void if you have a credit on
28:35your
28:35account no if so where exactly is this documented and why are you allowing suppliers in essence
28:41giving them six years to resolve their errors rather than the 12-month limit in their license
28:45well i'll go to jonathan in a second look you if you as long as you haven't done anything to
28:49stop
28:49them getting readings if you are back billed so that means you're given a bill for your energy used more
28:54than a year ago and you haven't had a bill from them before for that energy you do not have
28:58to pay it
28:58and they cannot charge at you some of them try on by sending you bills that also applies if you're
29:02on a
29:02home heat network that's just been brought into regulation that shouldn't be happening no absolutely
29:06right you cannot be charged by for more than 12 months back on on your energy use unless for some
29:11reason you've got in the way of them being able to read your meter so if you've been giving meter
29:14readings then they can't bill you and the fact you're in credit they can't say we'll just take
29:18your credit they can't do that they can't take credit or debt into account you should not pay for
29:22money going back beyond that point go militant on their backsides elaine um elaine's saying
29:28i sadly lost my husband this year really sorry about that elaine and as he did all the financial
29:33stuff and bills i have no idea what i'm doing i'm on an edf variable tariff 122 pounds a month
29:39and would like to change to a fixed one but they want 50 pounds to do this can i switch
29:43to another
29:43company without having to pay this i so unless you're on some special tracker tariff so that it's
29:51got an early exit penalty which would be 50 pounds and i can't see that 50 pounds would be a
29:56debt it's
29:56too round a number i just don't know do you know so first of all really sorry elaine to hear
30:01about
30:01your husband but it doesn't seem to make sense to me if you're on a what looks like to me
30:05a standard
30:06variable tariff martin yeah and you should be able to switch away so unless it's on the track i tell
30:10you what elaine if you um if you get in touch with the team at martin lewis at itv.com
30:15with with more
30:16details i will try and sort that one out for you myself okay all right um and sheila this is
30:26the
30:26last one just coming in from sheila can you tell me whether you think a smart meter is a good
30:29idea
30:30we've resisted so far by our energy company saying our current electric meter no longer complies with
30:36the electricity act 1989 and wondered whether now is the time well if you i mean your meter can be
30:42out
30:42of date and that these days while they don't have to give you a smart meter many of them aren't
30:46fitting
30:46any other types of meter so you will have to have a smart meter but you can request it goes
30:49in dumb
30:50mode so it sort of acts like an old school meter even though the technology for me i'm pretty positive
30:54about smart meters the problem is not enough of them work which i'm coming on to a moment but you
30:59know
30:59what it gives an updated meter reading you don't have to do the meter reading got in it who's got
31:03a
31:03smart meter and keep your hands up if you like it the majority of you yeah and you you're you're
31:09pro
31:09smart meters as well aren't you very pro smart meters look i mean i'm i'm a customer like everyone
31:13here and i now get my energy use on my phone i get more accurate bills i don't have to
31:17phone in my
31:18readings and it allows me to understand what i'm doing a lot better so i go for it and those
31:22of you
31:22who don't like them i like you know you can still get fixes without them i need to go to
31:25my news you
31:26can use because i'll be talking smart meters in that too okay different subject to start the premium
31:31bond price fund rate we've just learned is to drop to from 3.6 to 3.3 in april and
31:38actually if you
31:39compare it to the top savings rates they've stood up pretty well they're now quite a lot higher and
31:43the premium bond is just a form of savings where the interest is based on a prize draw so top
31:47easy
31:48access savings are chase at 4.5 percent and the top cash ice version trading 212 at 4.4 percent
31:53only available by comparison sites at that rate both for new customers only top fixes so then you're
31:58locking in the rate guaranteed the rate for a year union bank of india at 4.2 percent all of
32:03these are
32:03fully uk regulated so you get the 120 000 pounds uk even though it says india it's the uk version
32:09of the
32:09bank of india 120 000 pounds saving safety protection uh the top cash isa fix is 4.1 percent
32:14then smart meters as we're just talking there's a new 40 pounds not enough in my view automatic
32:19compensation within 10 working days if you report an issue including your in-home device and the firm
32:24doesn't give you a resolution plan within five days doesn't mean they have to fix it within five days
32:28they have to give you a plan because there are some times where it takes a bit too long but
32:32you know
32:33but they're saying it's we can't do anything about it installation delays over six weeks or
32:37installation appointment fails plan compensation if smart meters go done which is of course the
32:42biggest fault out there isn't now in this it was going to be in this it hasn't why haven't you
32:47implemented that so we've got some work to do on the back end here to make sure that all the
32:50communication system behind this is fixed so if in a year's time we still haven't got this fixed that
32:54will go in there okay the point is customers now if something goes wrong get instant redress which i
32:59think is a good thing i've got one minute left sorry so uh ending on saturday 25 percent of a
33:03one-year
33:04rail card it's actually nine quid off go via the little plus app which is free to get go to
33:07partner
33:08offers you've got to be a newbie at train pal to get it otherwise it's 10 off it's the friend
33:11friends
33:12and family two together senior 16 to 30 rail cards and my final thing on here blue light discount cards
33:17for all those brilliant workers if you don't already have a card it's only a five pounds offers high
33:22street and online discounts why am i doing it this week because on friday there's a 10 off morrisons
33:26if you spend 40 pounds or above you get a code and then you can go into morrisons in store
33:29so if
33:30you're going to spend 50 quid on it it covers the cost of the card even if you don't have
33:32one there's also a
33:33co-op five pound off 30 pound online order that ends saturday one more question quickly no we don't
33:37next week what oh i wasn't the question oh no we're not we're going next week wills and power of
33:41attorney thank you judette thanks to the audience thank you jonathan for joining us see you then bye
33:52just out of time there martin's back next week at 7 15 and don't forget if you missed
33:57any of that you can watch it again on stv player and next up here it's any deal
34:04you
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