Power to the people, less to energy firms - Fiona Duff

I like to use power carefully because, as someone once said, it does come with great responsibility.

Around 4 in 10 adults reported an increase in the price of fuel over the past month

Believe it or not, my remarking that I have this platform in the Evening News can actually bring about results.

Recently my 93 year old mother, who has been diagnosed with dementia, received a letter from Ovo Energy. Obviously she could neither read the letter nor understand it – that’s why my brother and I have Power of Attorney, so she doesn’t have to worry about such things. And thank the Lord for that as if she had been able to focus on the contents of the missive it might have given her a heart attack, just to add to the other list of her ailments.

Ovo Energy have decided that her electricity bill direct debit should be raised from around £240 a month, which is a heck of a lot more than it was a year ago, to a whopping £507 a month. That’s over £6000 a year, for any of you who don’t have a calculator to hand. If she was currently existing on a state pension that really wouldn’t leave an awful lot left to pay for anything else. And believe me, one aspect of her dementia means that she has developed an incredible appetite for chocolate.

I emailed the Ovo Energy media centre to see what they had to say about this, but haven’t received a reply. I know I didn’t give them a lot of time before writing this so I phoned the phone number listed in the ‘Media Centre’. Guess what? It doesn’t exist. I suppose that’s just like the morals of the people running these companies as well as the rationale of OffGem who seem to think it alright that energy companies can make treble the profit that they did last year. I don’t suppose that having to turn off the radiators in the home of a lady who can hardly move is of particular interest to them.

So OffGem, Ovo and British Gas (who have just sent yours truly a massive bill) don’t use your power to turn ours off.