British Gas warns against political meddling as profits fall

British Gas owner Centrica revealed on Thursday a £571m profit haul from its residential energy arm for 2013 months after hiking gas and electricity prices. It blamed the fall on rising wholesale prices and a mild winter.

New chairman Rick Haythornthwaite called for a “collaborative, constructive dialogue” over energy policy, warning that political moves such as Labour leader Ed Miliband’s pledge to freeze prices if the party wins power were “immensely damaging” and threatened crucial investment in the country’s energy market:

“I think the reputation of Britain as a place in which to invest is under threat and the time to correct that is now, not after the 2015 election, by which time the possibility of the lights going out in Britain will be looming much larger.”

Losing customers

While the latest profit figures mark a 6 per cent drop on £606m profits British Gas made the year before, they are unlikely to calm public anger over rising energy costs.

Centrica said British Gas shed 2 per cent of residential customer accounts in 2013 to 15.3 million as households switched to other suppliers following its move to increase tariffs by 9.2 per cent on average from November as part of a round of painful winter bill rises across the industry.

It added that another 100,000 had quit the group so far this year, but customer switching was now “stabilising” after it scaled back its price rise by 3.2 per cent following a shake-up of the Government’s so-called green levies on bills.

Across the group, operating profits were 2 per cent lower at £2.7bn last year.