Did Rishi Sunak budget help businesses in the energy crisis?

Businesses would have been hoping for something from the Rishi Sunak budget yesterday to ease the burden of the huge increases in their utility bills as a result of the energy crisis.

Did they get it? The short answer is no, they did not.

We had hoped that the budget might include some temporary measures to acknowledge the significant issues facing businesses from the on-going energy crisis - a crisis that is beyond their control.

But while there were some good things for business in the budget, the lack of an acknowledgement of the very significant energy issues that businesses are facing was, for us, a glaring omission.

We have been fielding a lot of calls from business owners, site managers and utilities consultants who have been under severe pressure as gas prices in particular have soared in the past six months.

Business owners whose energy contracts have come to an end have been facing significant increases in rates for new deals - that’s if they can even get a deal for energy from a supplier.

Those that have contracts due to end before the end of the year or early in 2022 have also been anxiously hoping for the market to stabilise before they renew, or else they face a significant increase in costs too.

Eon recently outlined how the risk of the energy crisis continuing through this winter was still very real, despite the Russian government announcing that it will allow more gas to flow into Europe.

In its winter outlook document recently published Eon said that by early November it would expect to see an increased physical flow of gas into Europe from Russia, and if the recent mild weather we have been experiencing continues then some of the risk could be removed.

But there are a couple of big ifs in that.

With that much uncertainty in the market it is little surprise that suppliers are being extra-cautious in the deals they are arranging for customers now and for the future.

We have been negotiating hard for all of our clients that are facing renewal this year and early next year, and we have been helping those that have found themselves facing a huge increase in their energy costs to find a better deal that would work better for them.

Our contacts and our excellent reputation in the sector means we have been able to secure some very good deals for customers given the current situation.

So get in touch with us if you need help getting the right business energy deal for you now or in the future.