Gone West Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 What a good idea! Ofgem considering it. https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-11031939/Scrap-energy-standing-charges-prevent-fuel-poverty-says-charity.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 Just now, Gone West said: What a good idea! Ofgem considering it. https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-11031939/Scrap-energy-standing-charges-prevent-fuel-poverty-says-charity.html Taking just electricity, and an consumption of 10 kWh a day, that would add 5p to the unit price, so around 40p/kWh. Still pretty cheap when you consider what you can do with it. Try pushing a 1 tonne car along a road for £9.6p BELOW minimum wage. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radian Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 44 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: Try pushing a 1 tonne car along a road for £9.6p BELOW minimum wage. I like this comparison. 3 to 4 miles per kWh appears to be ball-park for EVs so whenever I put on a 2kW heater for half an hour, I'll bear in mind that I didn't have to push a car for 3 miles to get the room warm. Probably would have made me warmer though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 And who’s top of that list? Yes the south west, 101%, just like water charges. No wonder Cornwall is considered a poor county 🤷♂️ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 2 hours ago, Gone West said: What a good idea! Ofgem considering it. https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-11031939/Scrap-energy-standing-charges-prevent-fuel-poverty-says-charity.html Hmmm. 🤔 Daily Mail article using poverty as a reason to support abolition of standing charges. They did not mention that people with empty houses and second home owners will love it - no energy bills at all whilst they are not occupied. Straight abolition is not a subtle enough policy imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 1 hour ago, joe90 said: No wonder Cornwall is considered a poor county Good job we left the EU, stops us being at the financial bottom there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gone West Posted July 22, 2022 Author Share Posted July 22, 2022 1 hour ago, Ferdinand said: no energy bills at all whilst they are not occupied. Plenty of other ways to tax those owners without hitting everyone else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 Purely anecdotal, but seems to me that the "locals" that want to tax second home owners, also want to stop all new building. And stop business from opening and expanding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnMo Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 They already tax you for buying a second home in Scotland, at time of purchase. I thought they only wanted to stop new homes being build, if they could be purchased by anyone, but them, at a reduced price? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gone West Posted July 22, 2022 Author Share Posted July 22, 2022 5 hours ago, Ferdinand said: Daily Mail article using poverty as a reason to support abolition of standing charges. I'm not hung up on where the report came from but more interested in the fact that the Ofgem are considering scrapping standing charges which will help those who have spent money and effort in reducing their energy usage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnMo Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 Last month and this month so far, my gas bill has consisted of 1/3 actual gas usage and 2/3 for the standing charge. It wasn't that long ago that Ofgem or similar, said all energy companies had to apply a standing charges. I used to use Ebico, purely because they didn't apply a standing charge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 17 minutes ago, JohnMo said: Last month and this month so far, my gas bill has consisted of 1/3 actual gas usage and 2/3 for the standing charge. It wasn't that long ago that Ofgem or similar, said all energy companies had to apply a standing charges. I used to use Ebico, purely because they didn't apply a standing charge. A good argument for being all electric and one standing charge. Or Oil or LPG for heating with no standing charge. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 11 hours ago, Gone West said: I'm not hung up on where the report came from but more interested in the fact that the Ofgem are considering scrapping standing charges which will help those who have spent money and effort in reducing their energy usage. I'm partly with you on that one, but the source is always important to know as it affects the content of the case being made. In this piece, for example, they claim that my SC is about 10% higher than is actually the case - 46p vs 42p per day. A problem with tabloid journalism in all of the papers. SC are regulated, and have gone up to cover costs related to companies going bust and increased fixed costs (eg fuel), which are being shared across the county. That also suggests they will go back down in time. The costs will move to somebody else if SC is reduced, which needs to be taken into account. And zero standing charge tariffs have been tried previously, they have not exactly set the market alight. 15 hours ago, Gone West said: Plenty of other ways to tax those owners without hitting everyone else. This isn't a tax, though - it is a payment for a service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSharp01 Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 12 hours ago, ProDave said: LPG for heating We have LPG heating here at Millstone Manor and it has a standing charge - they call it tank rental or some such but same thing in the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Walker Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 Understanding your electricity bill https://www.nationalgrideso.com/electricity-explained/electricity-and-me/my-electricity-bill is worth a read Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 On 22/07/2022 at 13:26, SteamyTea said: Purely anecdotal, but seems to me that the "locals" that want to tax second home owners, also want to stop all new building. And stop business from opening and expanding. Not me, I advocate doubling council tax on second “holiday” homes (not rentals) but support nearly all local building. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 3 hours ago, joe90 said: Not me, I advocate doubling council tax on second “holiday” homes (not rentals) but support nearly all local building. If I was getting charged twice the amount for the same local services as others, I would be a bit narked. Would it not be better to allow more holiday homes to be built. I doubt that all the builders would come from upcountry, so should help the local economy. There are a lot of holiday lets that are currently empty down here. Seems market forces are coming into play. Holiday homes and holiday rentals cannot stay empty for long, the business suffers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simplysimon Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 17 hours ago, Ferdinand said: This isn't a tax, though - it is a payment for a service. like VED? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 26 million meter, at 50p/day, works out at ~£4.8 billion. If there are 35 million tax payers, that is an extra £135/year each if it is taken from general taxation. Slightly less than the £150 some households have already been give, and a lot less than the £400 we are going to get. I think chasing the meter rental is tackling the problem from the wrong place. Maybe that extra money (approximately £2.4bn) would be better spent on installing more RE generation, rather than protecting the energy supplier from bad debt. Bad debt is an ordinary business cost and is probably not as high as the companies want to make us think it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 1 hour ago, SteamyTea said: There are a lot of holiday lets that are currently empty down here. Big difference between holiday let and second home (which is usually empty a lot of the year), yes holiday let is good fir the local economy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted July 24, 2022 Share Posted July 24, 2022 Quote On 23/07/2022 at 04:35, Ferdinand said: This isn't a tax, though - it is a payment for a service. like VED? VED is also a tax - it goes into the general tax pool. The difference between a standing charge and a tax is that the standing charge goes to a company providing an electricity or gas supply, not to the Government into the tax pool. The 'charge on the general industry for industry wide temporary problems' does not make it a tax imo. Which is why I think it is a category error to compare it to a tax. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted July 24, 2022 Share Posted July 24, 2022 17 hours ago, SteamyTea said: 26 million meter, at 50p/day, works out at ~£4.8 billion. If there are 35 million tax payers, that is an extra £135/year each if it is taken from general taxation. Slightly less than the £150 some households have already been give, and a lot less than the £400 we are going to get. I think chasing the meter rental is tackling the problem from the wrong place. Maybe that extra money (approximately £2.4bn) would be better spent on installing more RE generation, rather than protecting the energy supplier from bad debt. Bad debt is an ordinary business cost and is probably not as high as the companies want to make us think it is. I think this one will go away rapidly, since the cause is covering the costs of companies going bust etc, and that is a one-off, and Standing Charges should go back down. The system may be changed, but the current issue is a short-term crisis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 24, 2022 Share Posted July 24, 2022 Just now, Ferdinand said: The system may be changed, but the current issue is a short-term crisis That is my feeling. We all just have to suck it up for the time being. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted July 24, 2022 Share Posted July 24, 2022 9 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: That is my feeling. We all just have to suck it up for the time being. IMO the biggest error was for the Govt to go for a demand side, not a supply-side, intervention. Free market Tories not transcending their inappropriate for these circs neo-Thatcherite limitations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted July 25, 2022 Share Posted July 25, 2022 Worrying times? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-62296443 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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