In the run-up to the 2017 UK General Election, Theresa May has promised to impose a cap on standard variable power tariffs in the Tory manifesto to end what she calls the “injustice” of rising energy costs. Under the proposed plan, the energy regulator Ofgem would set a limit for the standard variable tariffs that customers move to by default after their existing deals run out. This measure is meant to save about 17 million customers up to £100 a year.
"Like millions of working families, I am fed up with rip-off energy prices," she wrote in The Sun. "Gas and electricity bills only ever seem to go in one direction, eating up more and more of your monthly pay packet."
Ms May accused the UK’s Big Six energy companies of continuing to raise prices in recent months while the firm’s profit margins reached “record levels.” The PM said the energy market would “not work for ordinary people” who would not be getting a “fair deal.”
Greg Clark, the British Business Secretary, had earlier publicly accused the energy industry of overcharging customers by an average of £1.4 billion a year between 2012 and 2005, equivalent to between £70 and £200 extra on bills.
Election bribe?
The Scottish National Party (SNP) called Ms May’s proposal an “election bribe,” while Labour leader Jeremy Corbin rushed to dismiss the Prime Ministers plan as "desperate stuff", claiming it would lack “any proper detail.”
The main opposition party in Britain already promised to freeze energy bills in its 2015 election manifesto, but pollsters suggest that it still faces an uphill struggle if it wants to come anywhere close to winning the upcoming election.