The npower chief executive today said the Government could knock another £90 off energy bills if it wanted to.
Paul Massara said ministers had been right to reduce the impact of “green levies” on bills but argued they had not gone far enough. The energy boss also said Labour’s plan to freeze bills had already caused a “dramatic cooling” of investment in the UK and would mean consumers paying more.
In December, the Government announced that tariffs loaded on to bills to pay for green subsidies and help older people heat homes would be reduced to relieve pressure on household budgets.
Chancellor George Osborne said that the reduction would be paid for in part by taking money from the general taxation pot.
But Mr Massara told the BBC today: “That reduced the bills by about £53. That is just one small measure, but if they’d have scrapped it, it would have been about £140 off the bill.
“We don’t want them to scrap it because actually we think insulating old people’s homes which are leaky is the right thing to do.
“What they should have done is taken all of it into taxation, because actually it’s unfair that everybody gets hit in the same way.”
Mr Massara made the comments as npower produced its second “Energy Explained” report, which aims to reassure customers the firm is making no “hidden profit”.
It argued that energy prices in the UK were among the lowest in Europe but that bills were pushed up because homes were so badly insulated.
Mr Massara also said that in the future people would simply have to get used to being more efficient with energy use and that the country’s “old and draughty” houses currently waste too much gas and electricity.
The chief executive went on to say that Mr Miliband’s plan to freeze bills was “a good headline” but was already putting firms off investing in the UK.
He said: “It’s already having a dramatic effect. What it’s doing, it is freezing investment.
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“People are looking at the UK and they are saying, ‘do you know what? If they can freeze prices I’m not sure I want to invest in that market place’.
“We are seeing a dramatic cooling of investment into the UK because of political uncertainty.”
He added: “Ed Miliband cannot control commodity markets which set almost 60 per cent of the energy price.”
