Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, said: “This jiggery-pokery looks like it means cheaper energy. It doesn’t. What it actually reflects is falling energy consumption, which is a disaster.
“Less usage actually means a shrinking number of people paying higher prices. The best thing for growth, living standards and our prosperity is to make electricity cheap.”
Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform UK, said: “Lowering the headline cap figure just because desperate families have been forced to ration their heating is a cynical gaslighting of the British public.
“The underlying problem remains that bills are rising thanks to successive governments’ reckless green-obsessed agenda. We don’t need recalculated averages, we need cheap, plentiful and reliable British energy.”
The energy price cap, which is updated every three months, presents an estimate of the dual-use annual fuel bill for a household based on typical energy usage and underlying unit prices of gas and electricity.
Ofgem said it was changing the way it calculates the price cap “to reflect the fact that households are using less energy than before – around 7pc less electricity and 17pc less gas compared to the last review” in 2023.
The new formula itself will not result in households paying less.
A government spokesman said: “This is a routine update, reflecting a fall in household energy use in 2022 – which has remained flat since. The figures were also updated in 2023, 2021 and 2017.
“We have taken £150 of costs off energy bills for the years ahead and extended the Warm Home Discount to around six million households.”
