High energy costs are hitting UK. It's about to get worse
People across the United Kingdom will face tough choices in coming months as energy costs for millions of households are set to rise by 54% on Friday
1 April 2022, 17:16
7 min read
Share to FacebookShare to TwitterEmail this articleBilqis Alam, an energy advisor from the South East London Community Energy co-operative (Selce), installs draught proofing rubber strips to the front door frame of the home of her client Tia Rutherford, in south east London, Tuesday, March 22, 2022. People across the United Kingdom will face tough choices in coming months as energy costs for millions of households are set to rise by 54% on Friday. It's the second big jump in energy bills since October, and a third may be ahead as rebounding demand from the COVID-19 pandemic and now Russia's war in Ukraine push energy prices higher. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
LONDON -- Tia Rutherford is worried about her 3-year-old son.
As energy prices soared last fall, she tacked fleece blankets over her doors and windows to keep the cold out and started serving Jacob breakfast in his room so she didn’t have to heat the living room. But she's consumed by worry that she can’t pay her utility bills and that her son isn't warm enough.
“There are effects on his health,’’ said Rutherford, a 29-year-old single mother who lives in southeast London. “He’s constantly catching colds.”
People across the United Kingdom will face similar choices in coming months with energy costs for millions of households set to rise by 54% on Friday. It is the second big jump in energy bills since October, and a third may be ahead as rebounding demand from the COVID-19 pandemic and now Russia's war in Ukraine push prices for oil and natural gas higher.
Energy costs are the main driver of rising consumer prices. While inflation is a worldwide phenomenon, it's a bigger issue in Britain because it's more exposed to rising natural gas prices than even its gas-reliant European neighbors, where utility bills and other costs also have soared. Prices for natural gas, which is used for electricity and heating, have more than doubled in the past year.
In the U.K., economists warn of the biggest drop in living standards since the mid-1950s, fueled by rocketing energy costs, food prices and preplanned tax increases. Disposable household incomes, adjusted for inflation, are expected to fall by an average 2.2% this year, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Those figures obscure the impact on low-income people being hit disproportionately by the crisis. Because they spend a larger percentage of their budgets on food and energy, the poorest quarter of British households will see their real incomes drop by 6% this year, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a think tank focused on improving living standards.
People who rely on government benefits and state pensions are being doubly squeezed because their annual cost-of-living adjustment was based on annual inflation figures through September — before consumer prices spiked.
That means benefits are set to rise by just 3.1% this year. But inflation jumped to a 30-year high of 6.2% in February and is expected to peak at around 8% this year as the war sends food and energy prices ever higher, the Bank of England predicted.
As costs rise, people are moving their beds near windows so they can read by the light of the streetlamps outside, said outreach workers at Christians Against Poverty, which offers counseling for those in debt. Divorced fathers skip meals so they can afford to buy food for their children when they visit, and an increasing number of people report the pressures make them contemplate suicide.
“The cost-of-living crisis is genuinely costing lives,” said Gareth McNab, the charity’s external affairs director. “Almost every single call to our new inquiries team is mentioning the energy crisis and an inability to cope. And yeah, it’s desperate out there.”
Energy prices for 22 million households will rise Friday as an update of the national price cap kicks in. Regulators adjust it every six months. Analysts expect a third consecutive jump in the cap later this year, which could leave consumers with utility bills that are more than double what they were a year earlier.
