British Gas cuts energy prices by 10%
Thursday 22nd January 2009, 9:23AM GMT.
British Gas is to cut its gas and electricity prices by ten per cent from February 10th.
The firm claims over 7.5 million households will benefit from the cut to the tune of an average of £84.
However, due to price hikes over the last year – which mean British Gas prices are 46 per cent higher now, before the price cut, than in January 2008 – sees average annual gas and electricity bills standing over the £1,000 mark.
Anger has also come at British Gas for cutting rates after the winter.
A British Gas spokesperson explained prices were still high.
However, he defended the company saying it bought gas in advance to protect customers from volatility in the market.
“For this winter we bought gas in the summer and we are still supplying that gas,” he said.
“We are now buying gas again and can pass on the cuts to customers.”
Other players in the energy market are now expected to follow suit and cut prices – just as they did in almost unison with increasing their tariffs.
“It would not surprise us if competitors followed,” the British Gas spokesperson said.
Further cuts, however, were not promised.
“It is difficult to say about future cuts. Prices are still high and it is hard to predict where they will go,” he said.
British Gas maintains the firm still hold the most competitive online dual fuel deal and they expect “an awful lot of switching” in the coming months, after some five million people change energy providers across the whole industry last year.
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Losing too many customers are we? I would never consider going back to BG their price hikes are far too often for my liking and their bullying tactics on doorsteps make me fear for the elderly being preyed on by these people. Even saying “No thank you” isn’t sufficient to get shot of them, one even had the cheek to shove his foot in my door, nearly got his leg chopped off too!
Offers of “price reductions” won’t fool the majority, they can keep their overpriced gas.
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haha they have increased the proces by over 46% and only give the customers a 10% decrese!!!
not only have i moved away from BG but also moved my whole family they are a joke there not even british they are owned by a french firm so why bother using a selfish, greedy, rude useless energy supplier when u can get a cheaper one with better customer service and i bet the savings will only be passed onto residential customers will businesses benefit from this so called price reduction i agreee they must have lost to many customers
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BG are a prime example of why the country is in dire straights. Profits and Shareholders first customers second or even third.
The Government are urging us to be green and cut emmisions by cutting back on our use of Gas Electricity and oil. So what do the big boys, like BG, do. Hike the prices up now and when we cut back they will maintain their huge profit margins and tell the world how clever they are. This of course looks after the profit sharing schemes and their shareholders.
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Only want to correct that BG is 100% British company I have never had a problem with the service from them, you must be getting confused with EDF who are French or perhaps R on who are German and even Scottish power who are not even Scottish please do your homework before posting on the blog
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actually Ross, British Gas is German owned, and I could if I wanted too, back it up. British Gas are expensive to new Customers, even with this 10% reduction, and there still expensive to existing customers! your looking at 23pence per kilowatt hour with no standing charge for electric, there’s another company called EBIco, there price is a fixed 14.00pence per kilowatt hour without standing charge, they treat customers with normal meters and pre-payment meters the same! British Gas are still the giants with rip off prices and poor service!!
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sorry ross but they are owned by centrica which if u check is french !!!!
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thanks Mr J BG are owned by centrica which is a french/ german company so perhaps ross u should concered doing yours !!!!
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Too little, too late. We were told by all of the energy suppliers who made multi-£billion profits that they would not be paying this out to fat cat execs, but instead would be investing in storage facilities to buy resources wehen the price was cheap.
Is there any evidence they have actually done so?
They just wring their hands saying ‘We bought when it was expensive, because we thought it would go up further!’ Sorry chaps – your mistake, your error in reading the market, and it should be your massive profits that absorb that error, not your poor customers!
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never mind they are all foreign owned, blame the people who privatised them, maggie thatcher and those RUDDY TORIES.the lord prevent them from coming back
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Does anyone know how to stop them telephoning me to try and get me to switch to their service? Three times they’ve called this week (even though I’m ex directory), and three times the answer has been the same: I’M NOT INTERESTED, LEAVE ME ALONE.
Quite happy with Atlantic Electric and Gas thank you.
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Mark,
register with the TPS (telephone preference service), it stops you getting cold calls and if you still do then you can report them.(cut my cold calls by 95%)
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I wouldn’t touch BG with a bargepole, the saga when they came to carry out the yearly service on my boiler would fill a book. I was told that because I had painted the outside cover of the boiler they would have to put a “prohibition notice” on it and a new boiler would cost just over £3,000. A “con” of course and when I said that I was cancelling my service agreement, suddenly the paint didn’t make the slightest difference and all the flannell and pressure to buy a new boiler ended.
Like Mark, I am with Atlantic for both gas and electricity. Very good for the past three years no problems at all. Yes go for the Telephone Preference Scheme Mark, I get the odd call from Jeremy, Algernon, Lucinda or some other English aristocratic name speaking with a broad Asian accent from Mumbai but all my cold calls have stopped. A similar service exists for mail but I don’t know the details of that, they just go in the wheelie.
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TO LITTLE TO LATE
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its nothing, show brown the clown has now clot with the power firms, if we were in charge, we’d have more competition in the market, more firms and less beurocratic regualtion like climate change laws, then you would all have cheap power
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Mark like Brian(2) says register with the TPS and whilst you are at it register with the MPS (mail preference service) too!
http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/
http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/
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Brian (2), Stuart and Captain Chaos – thanks for the info.
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