The UK has “relatively good electricity and gas prices”, the Energy Secretary said at the Energy Summit held on 17 October 2011.

Mr Huhne said energy companies were “not the Salvation Army”

Mr Huhne said on Radio 4’s Today programme, that energy companies were “not the Salvation Army”.

He added “We expect them to earn respectable returns for their shareholders but they need to be operating in a fair and competitive market.”

“We have already got, compared to other countries, relatively good electricity and gas prices.”

The request for the general public to switch supplier does seem futile however, when all of the “big six” suppliers have raised prices by similar amounts already this winter, and 99% of domestic consumers are supplied by the big six.

Some may find it interesting that the entire energy summit failed to even mention the discovery of vast amounts of Shale Gas at all.

Phil Bentley, the managing director of British Gas even went so far as to say “We are importing 50% of the gas that comes into Britain and we are having to compete for sources from the Middle East – Japan is importing huge amounts of gas on ships and that was gas that used to come into the UK market,

“It is an inconvenient truth that unit prices of energy are going to go up.

“In my opinion unit prices will only go one way unless someone discovers huge amounts of gas and imports it into the UK: the international price for gas I am afraid is going up,” Mr Bentley added.

Mr Huhne has already stated his determination to prevent a ‘dash for gas’ and insists that wind power and other renewables are the future of Britain’s energy security.