In a piece of corporate ineptitude that could only be eclipsed by a non-apology from a government minister in an expense scandal (step forward Maria Miller), Sam Laidlaw has put up a good showing this last week. Laidlaw, Chief Executive of Centrica, British Gas Business’ parent, decried the call for the CMA investigation into the […]
Big 6 Energy Companies Face-off
Following on from two polar opposite announcements last week, the butting rams of business energy square up this week. Alistair Phillips-Davies of SSE, the UK’s second biggest supplier and Sam Laidlaw of Centrica, locked horns over the latter’s “scaremongering” over the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation into the energy market. In calling for the […]
Is business energy too confusing?
In our Business Energy Barometer survey we asked businesses if they disagreed or disagreed with the following statement: “I’d like to do something about my business energy bills, but it’s so confusing that I don’t know where to start.” Overall, 26% of businesses said that they agree, and the figure is even higher among small and medium […]
Are businesses wasting money to save time?
When you ask businesses why they don’t switch their energy supplier, they’ll often tell you it’s because they just don’t have the time to do it. But by not spending a bit of time on their energy contract, they could end up wasting a lot of money. For an average business energy customer, the least […]
Which Is The Best Business Energy Supplier?
When faced lots of choices, how do you know which is best? We know that, for most businesses, price is the most important factor when it comes to picking a new business energy supplier. But what if two different suppliers offer you the same price? How do you decide which to accept? Customer satisfaction is […]
Agreement to Extend Energy Efficiency Targets
UK Energy Intensive Industries Improvements are expected to increase energy efficiency by 11% across all sectors. The Government and British Energy Intensive Industries (EIIs) have agreed to extend energy-efficiency targets to 2020, as part of the voluntary Climate Change Agreements scheme that provides an extension to the Climate Change Levy. The Climate Change Levy provides a rebate for industries until […]
Ed Miliband on Fixing Business Energy Costs
Mad, Red and Dangerous Ed Miliband, Labour leader, kept up his increasingly bizarre reading of the energy markets by announcing his intention to fix energy for businesses. In the normal course of events we would be delighted that a senior political figure at a major political party was taking the impact of rising energy costs […]
Is the rate of energy switching really lower than in 2003?
Could energy switching be lower than 10 years ago? It’s hard to believe given the prevalence of energy issues on newspapers’ front-pages but according to collective switching group “The Big Deal” that’s the case. Henry de Zoete, co-founder of the Big Deal said: “Energy UK and the Big 6 claim that the market is working […]
Energy News: Miliband Misses the Point… Again
In an increasingly bizarre twist in the trend of political intervention in the energy market, and following his equally leftfield call for centralised energy price setting, Labour leader Ed Miliband has claimed the credit for SSE launching a domestic price fix for its customer base. SSE announced a fixed gas and electricity deal for domestic […]
A Budget to Boost Business
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s fifth budget promised more benefits for the business community as he continued to push for economic recovery. Amongst the forecast actions stemming from his announcement on 18th March were expected to be: New tax reliefs on investment for small business; Renewed funding for UK Trade and Investment at a […]