Written question asked by Greg Clark (Conservative) on Tuesday, 21 July 2009, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 12 October 2009. It was answered by David Kidney (Labour) on Monday, 12 October 2009 on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Electricity: Prices

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what the average expenditure on (a) gas and (b) electricity of a household in the UK was in (i) 2006, (ii) 2007 and (iii) each month of 2008; and what information his Department holds for benchmarking purposes on equivalent figures for each other EU member state.

Answer: The Department's latest estimates for the average annual domestic energy bills and provisional estimates for the year to 2009 and are published in Quarterly Energy Prices, published in September 2009.For an average consumer using 18,000 kWh of gas per year and paying their bills on receipt (standard credit), the average annual bill for gas was £474 in 2006, £552 in 2007, £570 in 2008 and £719 in 2009.For an average consumer using 3,300 kWh of electricity per year and paying their bills on receipt (standard credit), the average annual bill for electricity was £338 in 2006, £383 in 2007, £405 in 2008 and £460 in 2009. Average bills per month are not available.DECC does not hold any information on average expenditure on gas and electricity by other EU member states. However regarding unit prices of gas and electricity in other EU member states, DECC republishes bi-annual data collected by Eurostat, the European statistical agency. The data are in Table 5.6.2 and 5.10.2 of Quarterly Energy Prices, published in September 2009 and available online at:"http://decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/publications/prices/prices.aspx"Latest data, for July to December 2008, show that UK domestic gas and electricity prices were the lowest and seventh lowest in the EU 15 (the original 15 EU member states) respectively.

Secondary information