{"id":816413,"date":"2026-10-28T10:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T10:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/816413\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T10:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T10:54:10","slug":"budget-2026-live-gas-bill-standing-charges-to-be-scrapped-chancellor-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/816413\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget 2026 live: Gas bill standing charges to be scrapped, chancellor says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gas standing charge &#8216;sensible&#8217; but &#8216;comes with risks&#8217;, say expertspublished at 09:28 GMT<\/p>\n<p>09:28 GMT<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Close-up of a touching the radiator woman's hand, wrapped in a throw and wearing a warm knitted jumper, trying to keep warm by the heating radiator. Energy crisis and cold weather concept\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/38837d44-81e2-415f-a381-2f7093b33e6b.jpg.webp\"  width=\"2121\" height=\"1194\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The scrapping of standing charges for household gas bills, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/live\/cq62y5xnm8dzt?post=asset%3A29a9df9c-b097-4582-b7cc-82cd7dc58362#post\" class=\"ssrcss-ztter6-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">announced by the chancellor earlier<\/a>, is &#8220;a sensible idea&#8221;, but won&#8217;t benefit everyone, according to Richard Neudegg, director at comparison firm Uswitch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Neudegg tells the Press Association that it can feel &#8220;illogical&#8221; for households with low gas use to be paying the same standing charge year-long, especially in summer when usage can be much lower.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">\u201cHouseholds that use less gas, such as those living in smaller homes, should benefit when this comes in,&#8221; he says, but says these costs will move to the price of each unit of gas, leaving heavy gas users worse off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While Citizens Advice chief executive Claire Moriarty, says the move &#8220;could be positive&#8221; but that &#8220;it does come with some risks&#8221;, especially for those living in poorly insulated homes who may have higher gas usage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Moriarty tells Radio 4&#8217;s Today programme that the &#8220;devil is in the detail&#8221; and this policy &#8220;needs to be accompanied by targeted support that takes account of people&#8217;s circumstances&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On the cost of the policy, Institute for Fiscal Studies (IF) director Helen Miller notes that &#8220;there is a real challenge&#8221; for the government to &#8220;decide who to help and who&#8217;s going to pick up the tab&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Simon France, of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, says the government has &#8220;serious questions to answer&#8221; on who will lose out financially, adding that \u201csupport for them must be in place before this change happens&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gas standing charge &#8216;sensible&#8217; but &#8216;comes with risks&#8217;, say expertspublished at 09:28 GMT 09:28 GMT Image source, Getty&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-816413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}