ScottishPower to cut average gas bill by £32 from March

SCOTTISHPOWER has announced it is to cut its standard domestic gas prices by an average of 5.4% from mid-March, the third supplier to announce such a drop in two weeks.
Scottish Power has announced it is to cut its standard domestic gas prices. Picture: wikipediaScottish Power has announced it is to cut its standard domestic gas prices. Picture: wikipedia
Scottish Power has announced it is to cut its standard domestic gas prices. Picture: wikipedia

ScottishPower said the reduction, effective from 15 March, would benefit more than one million customers and reduce the average annual standard gas bill by £32.

It follows SSE announcing on Thursday that it will lower standard gas tariffs by 5.3 per cent, also saving household gas customers on average £32 a year, and E.ON saying on 20 January that it will lower gas prices by 5.1 per cent from 1 February.

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Neil Clitheroe, ScottishPower’s chief executive of retail and generation, said: “Over the past year, we have tried to always offer our customers competitively priced dual fuel tariffs.

“This has encouraged more of our customers to switch between tariffs with now close to one in two on fixed price products. This is one of the highest proportions of fixed price customers of the major suppliers.”

The cuts come as the industry faces a backlash amid calls for cuts to be faster and deeper.

Consumer groups have said households are not seeing the full benefits of recent steep falls in wholesale energy prices.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been investigating the energy market since last summer.

An early report by the CMA last February found that the large companies were overcharging loyal customers who did not switch suppliers by up to £234 a year.

Ofgem’s senior partner for consumers and competition, Rachel Fletcher, said: “This is a movement in the right direction for loyal customers, but the size of today’s price cut is dwarfed by the savings available by switching from a standard tariff to a fixed deal.

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“You could save more money – up to £300 – faster by switching. It’s easy to shop around and impartial advice and links to Ofgem-approved price comparison sites are available from www.goenergyshopping.co.uk.”

Ann Robinson, uSwitch.com director of consumer policy, said: “ScottishPower is doing the right thing with a price cut but, yet again, it falls well short of what customers have a right to expect.

“This is yet another demonstration that the energy market is broken.”

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