British Gas boss pledges £12million – 10% of its profits – to help company’s poorest customers through cost-of-living crisis
- Centrica boss Chris O’Shea has pledged £12million to help customers in autumn
- Mr O’Shea said the sum – 10% of British Gas profits – would make a real difference
- It comes as parent company Centrica saw its profits increase five-fold to £1.34bn
Centrica boss Chris O’Shea announced measures to help struggling families this autumn after company’s profits soared
British Gas will give 10 per cent of energy profits to its poorest customers to help with the cost of living crisis, its boss has revealed.
Chris O’Shea, chief of executive of Centrica, which owns British Gas, has pledged to donate £12million this autumn, and said that grants of up to £750 would be available for customers.
He added that a further 10 per cent of profits would be donated every six months until the energy crisis resolves itself.
The promise could see as much as £60million made available for the company’s poorest customers and is the first promise of its kind to be made by an energy firm.
Mr O’Shea told the Sun that ‘many people are facing really tough choices’.
He said: ‘We don’t have a silver bullet and we know this fund can’t reach everyone. But I believe it can help make a real difference for those who really need our support.’
The grants of between £250 and £750 will be targeted to the tens of thousands of customers British Gas has identified will be in financial distress as a result of soaring energy costs.
It comes as energy watchdog Ofgem is expected to set the price cap at £4,266 for the average household in the three months from the beginning of January – around £650 higher than its previous forecast issued at the start of August.
Gas prices spiked again on Monday and unless they drop in the coming months, average households could be facing an annual energy bill of £4,650 from January and £5,456 from April.
The headline CPI rate reached 10.1 per cent in July – well above analysts’ predictions of 9.8 per cent. It was up from 9.4 per cent the previous month
Meanwhile Mr O’Shea, who has headed Centrica since 2018 and earns £875,000 per year, revealed on July 28 that operating half-year profits at the firm had risen five fold to £1.34billion.
Centrica’s bumper profits for the six months to the end of June far outpaced the £262m recorded in the same period last year.
The firm, which produces energy as well as selling it to households and businesses, announced it would restart its dividend at 1p per share after suspending it for three years – sparking a backlash from critics.
The £12million offered to help customers is less than one per cent of Centrica’s group profits, according to the Sun.
Operating half-year profits at British Gas parent company Centrica, rose five fold to £1.34bn
Mr O’Shea blamed regulator Ofgem for not being able to lower customers’ bills.
He told the newspaper: ‘Under the current system our regulator Ofgem sets the price you pay for energy to make sure everyone pays a fair price that reflects the actual cost of energy.
‘If an energy supplier decided to charge below that cap, they will lose money quickly and will go out of business.
‘We’ve already seen that if you don’t have robust and resilient energy companies then consumers pay the price – each and every household in the UK is forking out £100 more this year on energy bills to pay for the collapse of multiple energy companies last year and this can’t be allowed to happen again.’
It comes as inflations hit double figures for the first time in 40 years, the highest it’s been since 1982, at 10.1 per cent.
Now, an estimated 45 million people will struggle to pay energy bills this winter with predicted rises in price cap.
The new study, by the University of York, shows that 18 million families will be left trying to make ends meet after further predicted rises in the energy price cap in October and January.
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