Rishi Sunak is not listening over help with bills – will energy company bosses change his mind?

Corporate chiefs have joined a growing chorus of voices demanding help for people struggling with bills – it must surely be a matter of time before the chancellor acts, argues Ben Chapman

Chancellor Rishi Sunak (Aaron Chown/PA) (PA)

For months now, Rishi Sunak has chosen not to answer increasingly desperate calls of charities, think tanks and campaigners warning of the turmoil that awaits as living costs soar.

Sunak must know that the End Fuel Poverty Coalition estimates 8.5 million households will be unable to heat and power their homes this winter. Yet he has offered to cover only a fraction of people’s bills. He will know too that the Resolution Foundation reckons 1.3 million people are to be thrown into absolute poverty thanks to his failure to protect them from rising prices.

He could have offered targeted financial support through the benefits system, but he decided not to. Compounding that mistake, he delivered a pay cut to the UK's poorest people by refusing to increase benefits in line with inflation. The hardship that will result will be like nothing seen in the UK for many decades.

Experts from across the political spectrum have told him that the poorest families are being hit hardest by rising food and energy prices, and that his own tax rises are making matters worse. Yet still, the chancellor has refused to yield. If those voices are not compelling enough, perhaps he will listen more closely to the chief executives of the UK’s biggest energy companies.

On Tuesday, in clear and often impassioned detail, they laid out the corporate case for major intervention in the UK energy market. Bosses of E.On, Scottish Power and British Gas owner Centrica all backed a more radical approach in order to prevent catastrophe this winter. They also criticised the government for not doing more to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels – a failure that is now costing us all dearly.

It was “perverse”, said Scottish Power boss Keith Anderson, that people on pre-payment meters (who are more likely to be on lower incomes) were paying more for their energy.

Anderson told MPs he was “hugely concerned for people” facing large bill increases. “There are so many people who are going to really, really struggle,” he warned. Some 8,000 of them have already contacted Scottish Power to tell the company they are worried they can’t pay.

Come October, when bills are set to rise as temperatures fall, the problem will become “truly horrific”, Mr Anderson said.

He is backing a “social tariff” that will cut bills by up to £1,000 for people struggling to pay, with the tab those who can afford to shoulder more. It’s not the kind of recommendation one might typically expect from a large company’s chief executive, but it was broadly welcomed by other industry leaders.

So far, the chancellor has steadfastly clung to his belief that he has offered quite enough help; that balancing the government’s budget must come first, even if it means decimating the budgets of millions of ordinary households.

A few years ago, Sunak’s message of “fiscal discipline” might have garnered fairly widespread support. It’s now pretty clear that few people outside of the Treasury agree with him.