Thousands of households in the UK could save money on their energy bill this winter if the Government pushes ahead with abolishing standing charges for gas.
Andy Burnham said on Wednesday that he had asked the Chancellor, John Healey, and Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Miatta Fahnbulleh, “to look at whether we can remove standing charges from gas bills”.
The move would remove the component of households’ dual fuel bills which is charged regardless of how much energy the household is using, meaning those who use the least energy would benefit the most from the change.
This comes after typical household energy bills increased to £1,723 this month but are expected to increase further to possibly more than £2,000.
Australian MP’s legs amputated after ‘politically-motivated attack’
Doctors have amputated both of Australian MP Helen Haines’s legs after she was repeatedly hit by a car in an apparent act of political violence, her husband said.
What happened?
Haines remains in critical condition. The 65-year-old independent politician is receiving treatment in a Melbourne hospital where she was flown by helicopter.
Haines’s husband said her left leg was amputated on Monday and her right leg was amputated on Wednesday after doctors abandoned hope of saving it.
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What her husband said
The good news in all this is that Helen is alive and she’s stable. That is the most iortant thing for our family… We are grateful and thankful that at this stage, both her heart and her mind are in good shape.
Phil Haines
The alleged attacker
Brendan Nugent, a 43-year-old man from nearby Tarrawingee, has been charged with intentionally causing serious injury, dangerous driving causing serious injury and causing harm to a federal official.
- Police have yet to determine a motive.
- Witnesses say the driver rammed his victim, pinning her against her own car before reversing and ramming her a second time.
- Nugent’s lawyer Chirag Patel said he was suffering from potential mental health issues but had never been diagnosed with any mental health problem.
- Patel said Nugent suffered from a concussion and a neurological condition, idiopathic transverse myelitis, which disrupts nerve signals between the brain and body, leading to rapid muscle weakness and sensory loss.
Nigeria confirms Ebola case
Nigeria reported its first Ebola case in more than a decade on Tuesday, becoming the fourth African country to be affected by the outbreak.
Where has Ebola been detected?
- Ebola disease from the fast-moving outbreak in Congo has now spread to four other countries.
- This is including two where it’s active.
- It was first declared in eastern Congo in mid-May.
- Nigeria confirmed an Ebola infection in its capital, Abuja.
- This was in a woman who arrived from Uganda about two weeks ago.
- Uganda has reported 20 cases but none are active.
A closer look at confirmed cases so far
- Kenya announced its first Ebola case on 6 October, involving a man who traveled from Congo via Uganda before arriving in the capital, Nairobi, on 3 October.
- France confirmed a positive case of Ebola in June in a doctor travelling back from Congo.
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Should Britons be worried?
The World Health Organization has said it is the fastest-growing outbreak of Ebola in history. However, France is still the only country outside Africa to have recorded a case in this outbreak. The UK Health Security Agency says the current outbreak “poses a low risk to the UK population”.
Imported cases are extremely rare, only four confirmed cases have been reported in the UK since 1976, and there have been no UK deaths from the disease.
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UK approves drilling in Jackdaw gas field
Gas from the Jackdaw field will start flowing within weeks after the Government approved the project in an effort to improve domestic energy security and grow the economy.
Why has it been approved?
The Government says the approval of Jackdaw will increase domestic gas production by around 6 per cent at its peak, protect hundreds of jobs and provide an estimated £2.9bn economic boost.
- Tax revenues from North Sea oil and gas will also go into a new energy wealth fund, backed with an initial £2bn, which will invest in renewable and low carbon projects.
- Ministers argue that while UK households and businesses are still using gas, it makes more economic and environmental sense to increase domestic production rather than rely on imports shipped from other countries.
Why is the project controversial?
The approval of Jackdaw has been criticised by environmental campaigners who want to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels. Both Jackdaw and the Rosebank field were approved for drilling licences in June 2022, but these were overturned by the Scottish courts after a challenge from campaigners.
New public consultations on the proposals took place this year and closed in August. The Government has not yet greenlit Rosebank.
What does this mean for your energy bills?
The approval of Jackdaw will not bring down soaring bills because gas prices are set by global markets, and energy minister Michael Shanks acknowledged “we will not stop being a net importer of fossil fuels because of this decision”.
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Actor Noel Clarke in court over sexual offence allegations
Actor Noel Clarke is expected to appear in court today charged with sexual offences against five women.
What has he been accused of?
Clarke, who has appeared in and is accused of two counts of sexual assault, three of voyeurism and one of exposure between 2007 and 2016.
The offences are alleged to have taken place in London and Dorset. Clarke has previously denied any allegations of inappropriate behaviour or sexual misconduct.
What do police say?
Bethan David, deputy chief Crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Our prosecutors have worked to establish that there is sufficient evidence to bring this case to court and that it is in the public interest to do so.”
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Drinking tea may be good for your heart
Tea drinking is good for your heart, and drinking it regularly reduces the risk of vascular disease by 11 per cent, research has found.
What did the study find?
A study in China published in the Journal of Internal Medicine looked at the risk of vascular disease in 485,934 people.
- Those who drank about six to eight cups per day were found to be at the lowest risk of vascular disease among weekly tea drinkers.
- Vascular disease can include heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, pulmonary heart disease and peripheral artery disease.
- Tea consumption combined with not smoking and exercising was associated with the lowest risk.
The expert view
This doesn’t prove that a daily cuppa protects your heart. This was an observational study and other differences in people’s diets and lifestyles could help explain the findings… We need further evidence before assuming the findings apply in the same way to people in the UK.
Dell Stanford, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation
Judi Dench: Cats film was a waste of talent
Actor Dame Judi Dench has described the 2019 film , the adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, as a “waste” of “goodwill and talent”.
She starred as the wise moggy Old Deuteronomy and has so far declined to watch the movie.
What she said
Oh God, I can’t bear it, and [Lloyd Webber] had waited so long for it to be made. What a waste of all that goodwill and talent. I understand the critics were rather hostile to the film. I never saw the final cut so I can’t judge. All I’ll say is nobody sets out to give a poor performance or make a bad film. You do your best… and hope that people will get on board and join the party.
Details revealed in new memoir
In her forthcoming memoir, Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?, Dench said she felt “ill at ease from the beginning – I just didn’t feel right in the role”, reports.
She said young dancers were ignored at the end of each take. However, she said she enjoyed meeting co-star Taylor Swift and receiving 50 everlasting roses, spraypainted gold, from Jason Derulo, another co-star.
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Why was the film panned?
The director, Tom Hooper, has been criticised for how he adapted the musical, including error-prone use of CGI. He has not made a film since.
Lloyd Webber has said “the whole thing was ridiculous”, “off-the-scale wrong” and that it caused him to become a dog owner.
Experts told The i Paper that savings will be limited by the cost being passed on to the unit price of gas, meaning those with heat pumps will still save money compared to those with gas.
How much could you save?
The average gas standing charge, set by the energy regulator Ofgem as part of its price cap, is 29.68p per day. This means a household that uses gas pays this much every day before any charge for gas used is added.
This means that an average household spends £108.33 a year on gas standing charges at current rates. The price cap is expected to go up when it is reviewed in January, meaning the cost of the charge would go up.
To pay for abolishing the standing charge, gas companies would need to increase the unit price households pay for gas, so households wouldn’t see the full figure taken off their bill.
According to energy research centre Nesta which has proposed abolishing the charge, the typical dual fuel household would save £27 a year under this system.
Who will save the most?
Poorer households would benefit more from this change than better off households because they will hold off on switching on their heating and using power to try and save.
“Removing the standing charge tends to help lower income households, because they tend to use less gas, and therefore, a bigger share of their bill is the standing charge,” said Andrew Sissons, director of sustainable futures at Nesta. “It means that households that use a lot of gas will probably pay a bit more.”
Nesta estimates that 84 per cent of the poorest households would be better off, compared to only 23 per cent of the wealthiest. The median household in the poorest income group would save £46 per year, compared to £33 for the next poorest.
Will heat pump owners benefit?
Even households who have a heat pump installed and run their heating and hot water off electricity could benefit from the removal of standing charges, according to heat pump installer James Stalker.
“If you have a heat pump you’re generally not using gas, but some people still use it for cooking,” he said. This means people with heat pumps are using a relatively small amount of gas, meaning the proportion the standing charge makes up is higher and their saving is likely to be more significant.
For those who haven’t yet installed a heat pump, the removal of the charge could make it a “more attractive” option, according to Nesta.
“Taking the standing charge off gas and loading it onto the unit price makes every unit a gas boiler burns more expensive,” said Stalker. “Heating is where most of a home’s gas goes, so the households with the most to gain from that change are the ones who switch their heating to a heat pump.”
Electricity is generally more expensive than gas per unit, but because heat pumps are more energy efficient, households can still save money switching.
“Heat pumps typically use about four times less energy than a gas boiler, so if electricity is less than four times more expensive, you can save quite a bit on your energy bill by switching,” said Sissons.
The gas to electricity price ratio is currently at 3.3, and removing the standing charge would bring it down to 2.97, according to Sissons, meaning households would save more by switching to a heat pump.