The chancellor has mentioned he "is willing to do what it takes" and improve assist for households if power payments rise once more this autumn.

Sky's economics and information editor Ed Conway requested the chancellor if he might assure he would step in if power payments begin rising once more.

"All I can say is that I think I've demonstrated in the autumn statement, and the spring budget where I extended the energy price guarantee for another three months, funded in part by a windfall tax on the oil companies, that we are willing to do what it takes," Mr Hunt mentioned.

"We are very aware of the pressures that families are facing, and we want to do what we can to support them", he mentioned.

But, he added they weren't anticipating a significant improve in Ofgem's power worth cap, which at present introduced common payments to £2,074 a yr, down £426 a yr from the earlier cap and is reviewed each three months.

When requested if the federal government would step in, if payments hypothetically reached £3,000 a yr, the chancellor mentioned he was not anticipating these sorts will increase.

"I don't want to predict today what might happen to energy prices at the moment", he mentioned. "I don't have a crystal ball."

Wholesale gasoline costs have come down, enabling the power regulator to carry down the value cap, however the way forward for costs is unknown.

Ofgem's chief government on Thursday informed MPs it's "very, very hard" to foretell future power costs.

"Every prediction on the market has turned out to be substantially wrong," Jonathan Brearley mentioned on the Public Accounts Committee.

Read extraWhy excessive power costs are the brand new regular - regardless of worth cap dropEnergy worth cap set to stay greater than £1,000 larger than pre-pandemic

His "best guess" is costs will proceed to come back down however mentioned it was solely a guess.

Mr Brearley added he hopes costs proceed to fall however mentioned that it solely takes one international occasion to carry costs up once more.

Energy costs rose sharply within the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine as Western international locations rushed to stop use of Russian gasoline and discover various sources.

Oil and gasoline costs had already been rising as financial exercise restarted after pandemic-era lockdowns.

The authorities's power worth assure is about to finish on 1 July. It limits the quantity suppliers can cost per unit of power used and was utilized all through the autumn and winter.

No state assist is deliberate from July.

Content Source: information.sky.com