Two of Britain's leading price comparison services providers have issued stinging criticisms of the UK's energy providers for being slow to pass on the benefits of lower wholesale costs to consumers.
Moneysupermarket.com and uSwitch.com have both lambasted British utilities for benefiting from six months of falling wholesale prices while not passing the cost reduction onto end users.
The criticism comes as Scottish and Southern Energy and British Gas have revealed plans to cut their tariffs for customers in the coming months and RWE npower has moved to drop prices for its online customers. However, Moneysupermarket.com says that this is simply not good enough and that customers have a right to expect immediate price reductions from all suppliers.
Energy firms have been reaping the profits from cheaper wholesale gas prices since last summer, but this further delay means it could be nearly summer again before those savings are passed on to customers. Prices should be cut now, not in a few months time, Paul Schofield, head of utilities at Moneysupermarket.com, said.
Meanwhile, uSwitch is calling for double digit decreases now, with an overall reduction of 24% for gas and 16% for electricity by the end of the year.