As bleak as things look already due to the cost of living crisis, Martin Lewis has warned it's only going to get worse, with the UK set to face a "cataclysmic" energy crisis this winter as bills are soar to £3,000. The eye-watering figure is almost four times what it cost two years ago when the cheapest deal was around £800.
Appearing on today's instalment of Good Morning Britain, the MoneySavingExpert.com founder spoke to hosts Kate Garraway and Ben Shephard about the latest figures by market researcher Cornwall Insight, which suggest bills will skyrocket to £3,000 per year by January - though he admitted to suspecting that the true figures might be even more than that.
In May, energy watchdog Ofgem predicted the price cap will rise to £2,800 by October, but this has now been updated to £200 more. While on the ITV breakfast show, the financial guru also slammed ministers for acting "too slow" despite the vast amount of warnings they were given.
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He said: "We are heading for a very bleak winter. It doesn't feel it now. The sun shining. It's a nice time. It's easy to forget what's going on with energy bills. £2,800 was what the the regulator Ofgem said in May.
"Well, since May, the year ahead wholesale prices which the price cap are based on have been higher than before. The latest prediction I have, which was a couple of weeks ago from Cornwall Insight, is that for somebody on typical bills, the price cap will rise to £2,980 in October and £3,000 in January."
He continued: "But even that, I believe, is probably now out of date. And after what's happened in the last couple of weeks, I suspect we're looking at an over £3,000 for a typical bill coming in October.
"Now, to put that in context, a couple of years ago, the cheapest deals you can get just two years ago were around £800. So that's a nearly fourfold increase. And £3,000 a year is such a substantial portion of the amount that a state pensioner receives or an amount somebody on universal credit, a single person on universal credit receives."
Although households across the country are on course to receive an energy bill discount of £400 this October - with the poorest getting a payment of £650 - the money saving expert said bills were "unaffordable".
He added: "It is unaffordable. The government, the last Chancellor, as we should now say, did put in place £1200 to help on energy bills in the poorest households, £400 to go towards every household. But that was predicated on the £2,800 number that you discussed.
"I can't see it being as low as £2,800 when we get the announcement at the end of August of what the price cap will be. But new price starts on the 1st of October. So let's be under no uncertain terms. What we are facing is potentially cataclysmic."
The 50-year-old also pleaded with government ministers to act immediately to prevent millions of people falling into poverty over energy bills this winter.
"We are talking about millions, if not 10 million people moving into real poverty this winter," he told viewers. "The worst winter we have seen, well, maybe since the 1970s and maybe before that in financial terms. And to deal with that, the government was too slow to deal with the warnings that were given."
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