A mother has described how her children are sharing baths and towels in order to attempt to save money as energy bills increase. Channel 4 ’s documentary series Dispatches broadcast an episode, ‘Why are your energy bills so high?’ on Monday night.
The show investigated the collapse of the energy market as well as investigating the regulator, Ofgem. But throughout the documentary, we also heard from people, both named and anonymous, who have been badly affected by the situation.
Presenter Morland Sanders met Carla Hood and her two daughters, Ella-Rose and Dakota. Carla said she and her husband were already spending around £1,500 a year on energy bills and, despite both of them working, this was said to be “a major struggle.” You can get more cost of living news and other story updates by subscribing to our newsletters here.
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Carla told the show that she was now “going to have to find around £900 extra a year with no means of doing so.” She added: “I don’t know what we’re going to do, I don’t know where we’re going to find that kind of money. We’re at the point now where the girls are sharing a bath, they share a towel when they get out of the bath, and then they keep the towel for the next bath because I can’t afford to put the washing machine on all the time.”
Carla added that she and her husband turned the heating off at 7pm “as soon as the girls go to bed.” She became emotional talking about the sacrifices she and her husband were making, saying: “They’re kids, they should be warm. They should be fed without it being a struggle, and I just don’t know what I’m going to do.”
The show had started off in the Northumberland countryside, with volunteers chopping up trees to turn into firewood and give to those unable to afford to heat their homes with electricity. Morland Sanders spoke to Kate Thick, in charge of the operation, who said that, this year, they had “doubled the number of households” that they supplied to every year.
The show stated that energy bills had rocketed by a record 54%, making the average fuel bill just under £2,000 a year. “You just see a lot of hidden poverty. For them to afford fuel to heat their homes, it’s going to take almost half their income and that’s massive,” Kate told Morland. The show said that nearly 15% of families in the North of England lived in fuel poverty.
One “obvious” reason listed by Dispatches for bills rising was sanctions placed on Russia, which produces much of the world’s gas. But it was also noted that wholesale gas prices were “on the up” even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, making Britain, which uses gas instead of coal to heat its power stations, “especially vulnerable.”
However, another reason for energy bills jumping later again this year was said to have started eight years ago, with Ofgem opening up the market and more than 90 energy suppliers flooding in which, “according to Ofgem, drove our bills down.” But, the show said that 48 companies had gone bust, 29 of them in the last nine months, leading to bills going up as the remaining energy companies took on the customers of those that had gone bust.
“When the electricity bills come through, I just panic, sob. I won’t be able to pay them,” one person was recorded saying on the Channel 4 programme. Another person said that they weren’t opening their electricity bills because they were “petrified.” “I’m just waiting for them to cut me off,” they said.
The show also revealed the worries of those calling into an energy advice charity, the Centre for Sustainable Energy. Ian Preston, from the charity, told the show that advisors were speaking to people “who are right on the brink of their mental health, because they’re under so much pressure with the cost of living crisis.” The programme said that staff at the charity had recently been put through special training for suicide awareness.
“I’d say at least two or three times a week we’re speaking to somebody who feels suicidal,” Ian said. “A few years ago, we might speak to somebody once a month. Now, it’s a regular occurrence.”
Dispatches said that Ofgem was aware of the “looming market failure” of energy companies going bust “long ago.” Energy Policy Advisor for Citizens Advice, Alex Belsham-Harris, told the show: “At Citizens Advice, we were writing to them back in 2013 to say, ‘There are real problems here with some of these companies, and you should do something about it’.”
Alex told Morland that Citizens Advice had written “formally” to Ofgem back in 2013 and that “Ofgem said the current process they had at the time was striking a fair balance between protecting customers and also enabling more competition. They were keen to see new entrants into the market.”
Between then and 2018, Dispatches said that Citizens Advice contacted Ofgem 13 times about the viability and conduct of “a string of suppliers.” In January, 2021, Ofgem was given new powers to scrutinise the finances of energy suppliers - but a Freedom of Information request from Dispatches revealed that Ofgem “didn’t offer any energy supplier to carry out an independent audit last year.”
Ofgem told the show that it had a strong track record in enforcement and said it set out new measures such as robust stress tests to ensure all suppliers had solid business plans, and that it would continue to engage with and scrutinise the resilience of suppliers closely including obtaining detailed financial information.
The show later returned to Carla who described the rising energy prices as “scary.” “I feel like the girls in particular, they’re so young I don’t want them to grow up to think that they’ve come from a family that is so close to the line of poverty because of energy prices,” she said.
