Ministers told electricity prices ‘can and should be cheaper’
Climate Change Committee chief executive Emma Pinchbeck spoke out as she appeared at Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee.
The UK Government has been challenged to act to cut electricity bills for consumers – with the new boss of a key advisory body saying prices “can and should be cheaper”.
Emma Pinchbeck, who took over as chief executive of the Climate Change Committee in November, insisted it is “absolutely essential that the Government looks at how they can make electricity cheaper for consumers and businesses as soon as possible”.
Her comments came as she told MPs that if the UK meets its target of reaching net zero by 2050, then bills will “be lower” then.
She also stressed the “overall efficiencies of renewables and their cost to build” versus the cost of fossil fuel energy plants meant that renewables “are a cheaper technology”, adding the “economy overall benefits” from this.
She told Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee that electricity bills could be made cheaper if the Government acted to remove levies which help fund policies from them.
Currently bills include various charges to help support policies such as low carbon power generation, energy efficiency measures and providing support for vulnerable customers.
Ms Pinchbeck said: “For domestic consumers, if the Government chose to not levy the policy costs of electricity bills, the price difference between gas and electricity would be far less and electricity would be cheaper.
“That is a relatively straightforward thing to do.”
Saying that “lots of organisations have been making this recommendation to government”, she added that the Labour administration is “less advanced in thinking on this, as was the previous government, than they should be”.
Her comments came after Liberal Democrat MP Angus Macdonald said people in the UK are “paying four times the prices for our energy of the United States and we are paying twice as much as they are in Europe”.
The Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire politician added: “I can’t understand why this country is being so hampered by these huge energy prices.”
Ms Pinchbeck, however, stressed that even under the present system, having renewables helped keep energy bills lower.
She said: “Firstly, the presence of renewables on the system avoids imported gas which overall helps on bills, because you are having to import less.
“There are estimates that the presence of renewables in the UK market saved consumers a couple of hundred quid on their energy bills at the peak of the crisis.”
She added: “Electricity can and should be cheaper. It is absolutely essential that the Government looks at how they can make electricity cheaper for consumers and businesses as soon as possible.
“It is absolutely clear that renewables are cheaper than fossil (fuels) and we should be able to pass those costs through the system.”
Claire Daly, head of policy and advocacy at WWF Scotland said: “We wholeheartedly agree that a reform of the electricity and gas pricing is well overdue.
“Last year, research carried out by WWF and Nesta Scotland showed that virtually all homes here that switched to a heat pump would enjoy lower energy bills if the UK government reformed electricity pricing.
“Alongside this reform the Scottish Government must introduce a Heat in Buildings Bill without delay to make sure it can regulate for cleaner heating and energy efficiency later this decade.”
A spokesperson for the UK Department of Energy Security and Net Zero said: “As long as Britain remains exposed to the rollercoaster of global fossil fuel markets, we will be vulnerable to energy price rises over which we have no control.
“Our clean energy mission is the route to protecting consumers and bringing down bills for good, which is why we are delivering a new era of clean electricity.
“We will repair our retail energy market and deliver real change, to ensure people have the best possible support to choose more affordable, smarter, clean energy that is right for them.”
