With energy prices on the increase, many households are facing huge bills and these include standing charges for gas and electricity meters.

The Gas and electricity service providers continue to profit from people by charging 'standing charges' for gas and electricity meters.

This means that even if you decide not to use gas or electricity or use as little as possible, you are still going to be hit with standing charges for each meter in your property. 

As the energy companies increase household bill prices, the cost of the standing charges also increase.

The standing charges are around 50p per meter in your property per day. This means you are paying around £365 per year even if you do not use a lot of gas or electricity.

Given most people have to use gas and electricity, not only are they going to have to pay more money for the usage, but continue to pay standing charges and the standing charges are also set to increase.

The energy companies are making a lot of profit from increased prices and can afford to scrap the standing charges on gas and electricity meters.

At the very least, standing charges should be scraped for pensioners who cannot afford to pay and poor people on low incomes.

The UK government has the power to cause energy services providers to scrap standing charges or pay the standing charges for people who cannot afford to pay the standing charges.

Meters cost around £300 to manufacture and install. They can last at least 20 years. This means each meter in your home will cost you around £3,650 therefore for a gas and electricity meters the cost is £7,300.

And the energy providers are profiting from not only poor pensioners and those on low incomes, but all of us. In your lifetime energy service providers are likely to profit some £22,000 before you even use any gas or electricity.

It isn't enough that your energy providers are increasing prices; they are also increasing the standing charges. It's utter greed and abuse of power given that they are backup by the UK Government. 

Sign this petition and share it on social media, Facebook, Twitter etc. 

In this cost of living crisis it make sense to scrap the gas and electricity standing charges and keep it that way for good. It's enough that we're paying through the nose for gas and electricity so we shouldn't also have to pay for the privilege of hosting meters in our homes.