FINANCIAL guru Martin Lewis has taken aim at the Ofgem CEO as Scots face higher standing charges than those in England.
During an episode of The Martin Lewis Money Show, the presenter posited to CEO Jonathan Brearley as to exactly why Scots suffer higher standing charges for gas and electricity despite the huge amounts of wind power being produced in Scotland.
A Scottish viewer called in to the show with a question that sparked the conversation. They asked: ‘“Martin, can you tell me why standing charges are lower in London than in the north east of Scotland?
"Surely if the green energy is produced here then the standing charges should be lower than in the south of England?”
Brearley blamed the Scottish infrastructure, suggesting locationality to be the deciding factor for high Scottish bills : “If you live in Scotland, people live quite far away from each other compared to in a city so therefore more network is needed and therefore the charges are higher.”
Martin went on to reference how Greg Jackson, boss at Octopus Energy, said that people in Scotland live closer to the wind turbines so their should bills be cheaper, stating that the pricing system “all wrong”.
Brearley responded: “People in Scotland would get lower bills when the wind is being generated in Scotland. We are quite supportive of that change, so all of us want to see a system where we’re no longer paying wind farms to turn off in the same place where energy charges are high.”
This comes after it was revealed energy bills for millions of households will rise from April, when Ofgem increased its price cap for a third consecutive quarter.
At the time of this announcement, Brearley said: “We know that no price rise is ever welcome, and that the cost of energy remains a huge challenge for many households.”
“But our reliance on international gas markets leads to volatile wholesale prices, and continues to drive up bills, which is why it’s more important than ever that we’re driving forward investment in a cleaner, homegrown system.”
The regulator announced an increase of 6.4%, which will put up the average bill for households in Scotland on a standard variable tariff from £1738 a year to £1849.
