Manx Utilities chairman defends price changes

Standing charges are to rise by 5.7% while tariffs will fall by 5.1% in April

The Chairman of Manx Utilities has defended price rises to electricity standing charges from April.

Concerns were raised about the plans to increase the charge by 5.7%, in line with inflation, from 1 April.

It comes as the government-owned utilities provider announced a 5.1% reduction in electricity tariffs from the same date as a result of a drop in the prise of wholesale gas.

Chairman John Wannenburgh MHK said that had resulted in a £10m reduction in estimated costs to the company, which would be passed "to the customers in full" by way of the unit price reduction.

Mr Wannenburgh told the House of Keys it was a "good news story" for people across the island.

'Infrastructure improvements'

However Arbory, Castletown and Malew MHK Jason Moorhouse said he was concerned about the simultaneous increase in standing charges.

For residents "who have to pay the extra money, it's perhaps not a good news story for them", he said.

He also expressed concern that standing charges were being "favoured" over the overall rise and fall of the price of electricity.

But Mr Wannenburgh said standing charges were "the apparatus that delivers the power and that is a permanent thing that we need to be able to run our baths, to switch our taps on, flush our toilets".

"When the price of petrol goes down, road tax doesn't go down and so when the price of electricity goes down, standing charges don't necessarily go down," he said.

The rise from 23.3p to 24.6p a day would generate an additional £240,000 each year for Manx Utilities, Mr Wannenburgh added.

Treasury Minister Alex Allinson said such costs were "key to the infrastructure improvements that Manx Utilities has put through in the past and is putting through in the future".

And it provided a "guaranteed supply to consumers", he said.