Ofgem announces the cap for July to September. Cornwall Insight has it at £1,929. EDF Energy has it at £1,866. Either way you are paying around £200 to £290 a year more. Cornwall Insight
The wholesale gas spike is already locked into Friday's number. Ofgem's observation window closed in mid-May. The maths is done. The press conference is essentially a press conference. Ofgem
So the bill is going up. The question on every news bulletin this week is which party will fix it. The answer, mathematically, is none of them. Not in the way they are claiming.
Labour. Pledged £300 off the average household bill by 2030. Two years in, bills are £255 higher than when they took office. The Energy Secretary, asked to repeat the £300 figure in the Commons in January, would not. Hansard, 6 Jan 2026
Reform UK. Currently leading the polls at 25%. YouGov Plan: scrap green levies, save you around £203 a year.
Two problems. One, those levies fund renewables contracts that are legally binding for the next decade. You cannot cancel a contract because you fancy it. The money gets paid by someone, the question is whether it lives on your direct debit or your tax bill.
Two, the New Economics Foundation modelled what Reform's "drill more, scrap renewables" plan does in a 2022-style gas spike. With renewables on the grid: bills rise £40. With Reform's plan: bills rise £270. So you save £200 in the calm years. You lose £230 in the spiky years. The spiky years are the ones we have been having. New Economics Foundation
Conservatives. Plan: more gas plants, repeal the Climate Change Act. Their shadow energy secretary endorsed a report claiming net zero will cost £9 trillion. The Climate Change Committee, the independent body that actually does this maths, has the figure 90 times lower than that. CCC 7th Carbon Budget
So the official Conservative position is based on a number that is wrong by a factor of ninety.
Lib Dems. Free home insulation, up to £400 off if you actually get insulated. The mechanism works. The pace is glacial. The current Warm Homes Plan retrofits roughly tens of thousands of houses a year. There are 28 million homes.
Greens. Faster everything. More upfront, less in the long run. At least honest about it.
A party in government missing its own number by £555. A party leading the polls whose maths gets worse in the years you need it. A party in opposition campaigning on a figure that is wrong by a factor of 90. And two smaller parties whose plans are slower than the news cycle.
Every pound of the current £1,641 cap, by where it actually goes. House of Commons Library CBP-10505
Wholesale gas: 40%, around £652. Set globally. Putin, Iran, Asian LNG demand. Does not care who wins the next general election.
Network costs: 25%, around £463. Set by Ofgem under a multi-year framework called RIIO-3, locked in until 2031. Up £66 this year alone to pay for grid upgrades the country has needed for two decades.
Supplier costs and regulated margin: 15%, around £246. Billing, smart meters, call centres. Not really politics.
Policy costs: 10%, around £160 to £200. The levies. Westminster's entire two-year shouting match is over this 10%.
The next election will move 10% of your bill, in either direction, maximum. Probably less. Friday's rise alone, £288, is bigger than the entire chunk Westminster is fighting over.
Friday's cap goes up by about the size of the bit Westminster is fighting over. The bit Westminster cannot touch, the wholesale gas number, just absorbed a Middle East war.
You can vote in 2029. Or you can move your kettle to 10pm and let the grid pay you in the meantime.
Your July bill is going up. The grid will pay you anyway.
Free to join. Any supplier. No switching. Cash to your bank every month.
Join flexmypower.com →Sources
- Ofgem — Energy price cap explained: April to June 2026 at £1,641
- Ofgem — Summary of changes to energy price cap April to June 2026
- Cornwall Insight — Predictions and Insights into the Default Tariff Cap (May 2026)
- Cornwall Insight — Fall in Wholesale Market Lowers Price Cap Forecasts, July still rising
- House of Commons Library — What costs make up an electricity bill? (CBP-10505)
- Hansard — Oral Answers to Questions, 6 January 2026: Labour £300 pledge questioned
- New Economics Foundation — The cost of Reform UK's anti-environmental policies
- Climate Change Committee — The Seventh Carbon Budget: cost of UK net zero pathway
- YouGov — Voting intention 4 to 5 May 2026: Reform 25%, Labour 18%, Conservative 17%
- Electoral Calculus — MRP poll January 2026: energy bills the top cost-of-living priority for 55% of voters
- NESO — Demand Flexibility Service: winter 2024/25 results