Money expert Martin Lewis has issued a warning to state pensioners after Ofgem announced a change to energy bills.
This week, Ofgem announced that it is looking at scrapping standing charges on energy bills – or at least, creating a zero standing charges tariff which lower energy users could switch to to save money.
Standing charges currently cost gas and electricity customers an average of £338 a year, even if they have used no gas or electricity at all.
As a result, energy regulator Ofgem is looking to bring in a new zero-standing charge tariff aimed at helping lower energy users like state pensioners who don’t use a lot of units.
Even though the unit rate per unit used would be higher on this new tariff, pensioners and other low energy users would still save overall because they aren’t using many units.
On Good Morning Britain, though, host Richard Madeley quizzed Martin Lewis on why, given the reduction in Winter Fuel Payments this Christmas, can’t Ofgem bring in the changes sooner
Richard Madeley asked Martin: “We know this winter we are looking at no relief for pensioners on their bills.
“Why do we have to wait until the end of next winter for this to come into place?
“Couldn’t this have been brought forward sooner?”
Martin then replied: “I don’t want to be an apologist for the regulator but this is really complicated and they’re mandating forms to come up with a whole new pricing regime.
“And there are lots of issues such as my point going out and saying you have to default people, you have to make sure vulnerable people are on the cheapest tariff, that does take time to work through.
“The perfect solution would have just been to cut the standing charge and a subsidy for those vulnerable high users. We haven’t got that so it has to work within the consultation regime.”
Martin then stressed that there is still support for state pensioners this winter, but they need to apply within the next few days in order to get their £300 Winter Fuel Payment, and he urged people to spread the word.
He added: “Worth saying Richard, you’re saying no support for certainly for pensioners, the Winter Fuel Payment it’s being means tested this year, people will know I don’t like the method of means test and I think the means test is too low, but it’s worth saying the cut-off date for applying for Pension Credit, which is how you get Winter Fuel Payment, and is also worth £4,000 a year for low income pensioners, is December 21. It’s not long away.
“If you do apply by the 21st of December they can backdate the payment to when the eligibilutty criteria was three months ago.
“So let’s just make this plain, if you’re a lower income pensioner, you’re earning less than around £235 a week total income as a single pensioner, £350 a week total income as a state pensioner, then call up the Pension Credit hotline or go onto Gov.uk and check if you’re eligible. I’m not saying you will be eligible, I’m saying on those amounts of income, that’s when you should check.
“700,000 of the poorest pensioners who should be getting Winter Fuel Payment because they’re eligible for Pension Credit that aren’t claiming aren’t.
“I don’t like the mechanism but let’s get the word out.
“Lower income pensioners please check if you’re eligible for Pension Credit then you may get the Winter Fuel Payment as well.”
