Ofgem is urging the next Prime Minister and their cabinet to provide “an additional and urgent response” to continued surging energy prices.
It comes as Ofgem today announced it has raised the energy price cap by 80% to £3,549 from October.
In an admission that the scale of the energy crisis is beyond the regulator’s powers, CEO Jonathan Brearley says: “The Government support package is delivering help right now, but it’s clear the new Prime Minister will need to act further to tackle the impact of the price rises that are coming in October and next year. We are working with ministers, consumer groups and industry on a set of options for the incoming Prime Minister that will require urgent action.
“The response will need to match the scale of the crisis we have before us. With the right support in place and with regulator, government, industry and consumers working together, we can find a way through this.”
Ofgem acknowledges that surging energy prices will cause hardship in the months ahead.
Brearley says he knows the “massive impact this price cap increase will have on households across Britain”.
“I talk to customers regularly and I know that today’s news will be very worrying for many.”
Brearley points the blame at Moscow, for squeezing gas supplies to Europe, driving up wholesale prices: “The price of energy has reached record levels driven by an aggressive economic act by the Russian state. They have slowly and deliberately turned off the gas supplies to Europe causing harm to our households, businesses and wider economy. Ofgem has no choice but to reflect these cost increases in the price cap.”
