UK energy price cap approved by MPs
Five million households set for lower energy bills this winter

Millions of British homes are in line for lower gas and electricity bills this winter after parliament approved a law capping energy tariffs.
The energy regulator Ofgem is now required to cap standard variable tariffs offered by the ‘big six’ energy providers for households using gas and electricity, which are far higher than other tariffs on offer.
British Gas, SSE, EDF Energy, E.ON, Npower and Scottish Power, which control 80% of the UK’s energy market, have been accused by the government of offering “rip-off prices”.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Ofgem said the cap “will tackle the amount consumers have been overpaying”, but also urged consumers to switch energy suppliers, saying some could save up to £350 a year on gas and electricity bills.
The Competition and Markets Authority found that consumers have been overpaying by a total of £1.4bn a year.
Nevertheless, energy price caps have provided a politically-charged issue in recent years.
Capping utility bills was a key plank in Labour’s 2015 general election manifesto, but was rubbished by the then-prime minister David Cameron as evidence that Ed Miliband wanted to live in a “Marxist universe”.
The Tories were accused of hypocrisy when Cameron’s successor in Downing Street, Theresa May, included the policy her 2017 election manifesto.
“In 2015 freezing prices was written up as teenage Marxism,” wrote Philip Collins in The Times before last year’s election. “Now, lo and behold, it appears to be a reasonable response to hardship for the just about managing”.
He went on to argue, however, that “a blunt intervention in the energy market is a bad idea for a number of reasons”, citing the wide choice of suppliers available to customer, the incremental average price rise of just 3% since 2007 while energy companies’ profits remain flat.
“Price rises are due, essentially, to cost fluctuation” he said, and “price regulation is the sledgehammer that fails to crack the nut”.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Today's political cartoons - April 20, 2025
Cartoons Sunday's cartoons - Pam Bondi, retirement planning, and more
By The Week US
-
5 heavy-handed cartoons about ICE and deportation
Cartoons Artists take on international students, the Supreme Court, and more
By The Week US
-
Exploring the three great gardens of Japan
The Week Recommends Beautiful gardens are 'the stuff of Japanese landscape legends'
By The Week UK
-
How could stock market slides affect you?
Today's Big Question Pensions, prices and jobs at risk as Donald Trump's 'Liberation Day' measures take hold
By The Week UK
-
Why Spain's economy is booming
The Explainer Immigration, tourism and cheap energy driving best growth figures in Europe
By The Week UK
-
Is it time for Britons to accept they are poorer?
Today's Big Question Remark from Bank of England’s Huw Pill condemned as ‘tin-eared’
By Chas Newkey-Burden
-
Brits to be told how to save energy
Speed Read Have showers not baths, turn down radiators and lower boiler temperatures, the government will advise
By Sorcha Bradley
-
Why the ‘energy price cap’ is confusing – and how it could be better communicated
feature Government assumptions over public’s energy illiteracy doing more harm than good
By The Week Staff
-
US angered by Opec+ oil cut
Speed Read Energy prices to rise further as producers slash supply by two million barrels a day
By Fred Kelly
-
Water bill discounts: the customers due to save money
feature Watchdog orders Thames Water and Southern Water among others to repay millions to customers for missing targets
By The Week Staff
-
Will UK firms survive the winter?
Today's Big Question New government support package will cap wholesale energy costs for UK businesses for six months
By The Week Staff