silverguide.site –

Households in Great Britain could see their energy bills increase by about £290 a year to almost £2,000 from this summer in a “tough pill to swallow” for consumers already braced for a volley of “awful April” cost hikes from Wednesday.

A typical gas and electricity bill is now forecast to reach £1,929 a year from July under the industry regulator Ofgem’s quarterly price cap, according to analysis by the energy consultancy Cornwall Insight.

The forecast hike is £288 a year higher than the £1,641 cap on energy bills set for April to June after the Iran war pushed the UK’s gas market past three-year highs in recent weeks.

The April price cap will be £117 a year, or 7%, lower than the January to March rate of £1,758, after Rachel Reeves promised to lower bills by moving some green energy costs from bills into general taxation.

But the short-lived reprieve from rising gas and electricity costs is expected to be more than offset by a string of rises facing households in the spring. The annual cost of essentials, including council tax and water, will increase by more than £200 from April even before the economic impact of the Iran war is felt by households.

Most households in England and Wales will see an increase of about 5% in their council tax, while in Scotland bills will go up by between 4% and 10%. In Northern Ireland rates are due to increase between 1.96% and 4.5%.

Water bills in England and Wales are also due to rise, by an average of £33 a household from April, up 5.4% to £639. Meanwhile, the cost of phones and broadband are expected to rise by an average of £39.60 for an annual bill and £27.60 for a typical mobile contract, according to Uswitch.

Senior government ministers are expected to discuss the ongoing economic hit caused by the war at a Cobra meeting on Tuesday, after meeting with business leaders to discuss how the government and private sector can work together to respond to the ongoing crisis caused by surging oil market prices.

The international oil benchmark rose 4% to $117 a barrel on Tuesday as Donald Trump said countries like the UK should build up the “courage” to go to the strait of Hormuz and “just take” fuel. Experts fear that Brent crude could reach all-time highs of $150 a barrel if the conflict continues.

“Bills going up again because of war thousands of miles away will be a tough pill to swallow for households still saddled with debt from last time,” said Jess Ralston, the head of energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).

“Unless we continue [to] shift away from gas, whether it comes from the North Sea or not, the risk remains that bills will continue to spike,” Ralston added.

Rising energy costs have already led to emergency measures in parts of Asia which are heavily reliant on Middle Eastern energy supplies. But even in the US, the world’s biggest energy exporter, road fuel prices have passed $4 per gallon for first time in four years.

Drivers in the UK are already facing more than £500m in higher fuel prices due to the oil crisis triggered by Iran’s chokehold of global oil exports from the Gulf via the strait of Hormuz, according to the RAC Foundation.

Diesel has climbed to an average of 182.77p a litre, taking the cost of filling a typical 55-litre family car to over £100 for the first time since early December 2022. A full tank of petrol is setting drivers back £84 after pump prices climbed to an average of 152.83p.

The sharp rise in pump prices has prompted many drivers to fill up at supermarket forecourts, which typically offer lower prices, leading to pressure on fuel supplies at some sites.

Petrol prices at supermarket forecourts were an average of 7.6p per litre lower last week than at other sites, the AA said, compared with a price difference of 5.4p before the conflict in the Middle East began late last month.

Separate figures showed the collective debt of two million British homes to their energy supplier reached a record high of £4.55bn at the end of last year, according to official data published by Ofgem, after climbing by £7m over the final three months of 2025.

Martin McCluskey, the minister for energy consumers, said: “Action taken by this government on bills will see the energy price cap coming down from tomorrow. This reduction is fixed until the end of June, protecting millions of households with lower bills this spring.

“Tackling the affordability crisis is our number one priority and I know many families will be thinking about how events in the Middle East might impact the cost of living at home. We will continue to fight people’s corner through this crisis … if it’s necessary to intervene, we will.”