‘We won’t be here for long’: UK firms fear the worst as energy bill support ends

theguardian.com:

Thousands of small businesses risk going bust as “brutal” energy bills are to double with the end of a government support scheme from this weekend.

Companies are braced for an increase in energy costs as the government’s support for non-household energy bills falls away, and many fixed rate deals come to an end. The combined impact could drive energy bills for many companies up by as much as 133%, according to analysts at the consultancy Cornwall Insight.

Craig Lowrey, a principal analyst at Cornwall Insight, said the “worst-case scenario” would be “especially brutal” for companies that locked in to their fixed bills during the energy market peak last year and who would “no longer be able to count on the safety net of government support”.

Julian Pariera, the owner of Beauchamp Laundry Services in Birmingham, said: “It will dramatically affect our business.” Pariera told the Guardian in late 2021 that the energy cost crisis was likely to drive the company’s energy bills up fourfold. Since then, his gas bills have climbed almost five times higher, he said.

“We’ve already had to put our prices up by 25%, which means some customers who would come in to do laundry every two weeks are now waiting to wash once a month. We can’t put our prices up any more. We know that many of our customers are vulnerable and are feeling squeezed, and we just can’t squeeze them any more,” he said.

Energy costs are also a big burden for the hospitality industry, which was already hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to a rash of pub closures across the UK.

“This is the end of the independent village pub,” one publican said. The pub owner asked not to be named because he expects the financial toll of the energy crisis will force him to sell his