ENERGY price increases for more than 400,000 North East customers will have “catastrophic” consequences this winter, an MP claimed last night.
Bills for Npower customers will rise by an average of £134 per year from October, despite the company doubling its profits in the first six months of this year.
Npower announced its gas prices would increase by an average of 15.7% in the North East, with electricity going up by 7.8%. The electricity price increase is higher than the national average rise.
And with a third of North East households already estimated to be living in fuel poverty by virtue of spending 10% of their income on energy bills, campaigners have warned of worse to come.
Npower is the fifth of the so-called “big six” suppliers to announce a price hike, after Scottish and Southern Energy, Scottish Power, British Gas and E.ON.
EDF is yet to announce changes to its tariffs.
Last night Blyth Valley MP Ronnie Campbell said the price rises would make things even tougher for people already struggling to pay their bills.
He said: “There will be a few people worried this winter. We had people coming to us last year who couldn’t pay, so how are they going to do it this year?
“It’s catastrophic for families, they’re just not going to put their heating on, people just can’t afford to pay these bills. I can see more people being cut off.
“These companies are making massive profits but still increasing prices. I can’t see the correlation between the two.”
Grahame Morris, MP for Easington, has written to regulator Ofgem calling for the big six energy companies to be referred to the Competition Commission.
Mr Morris said: “The big six are operating effectively as a cartel and the Government should be introducing a ceiling or some controls. The Government should be acting in the interests of customers.”
According to statistics by National Energy Action (NEA), the charity based in the region, more than 375,000 households in the North East that can’t afford to heat their homes.
Maria Wardrobe, director of external affairs for NEA said: “Energy prices are at unprecedented levels and it is likely they are only going to increase.
“There is a real need for action to tackle the question of affordability. We anticipate that once EDF, the last of the big six suppliers to announce prices increases, does so, then this winter there will be more than 6.6 million UK households living in fuel poverty.
“Sadly, the North East is the worst region in the country for fuel poverty with a third of households needing to spend more than 10% of their income on their fuel bills in order to achieve an adequate standard of warmth.”
Npower, which has 429,000 customers in the North East, said its increases were lower than those announced by its rivals and said it was continuing to invest in green energy for the future.
Kevin Miles, chief commercial officer at Npower’s parent company RWE, said: “With reduced quantities of North Sea gas, we are now forced to buy energy on the volatile global wholesale market.
“World events have pushed up prices and we believe this trend will continue.”
