Energy firm is first to announce gas price rise

SSE, which owns Southern Electric, Scottish Hydro and Swalec, blamed the rise – which will come into effect on December 1 – on a 25 per cent increase in the wholesale price of gas this year.

This means the average annual household gas bill for an SSE customer will increase by 5.60 a month to 782. A dual fuel customer's annual bill will rise to 1,226 from 1,159 a year ago.

The timing could hardly be worse for consumers as it will come at the start of winter when gas consumption soars and just weeks before Christmas and the planned increase in VAT to 20 per cent on January 1.

Mark Todd, director of Energy Helpline, said SSE was the first major supplier to raise gas prices for two years but that others were likely to follow suit.

"We expect there to be a response from the other suppliers, and it's likely there will be at least a few that move before Christmas.

"UK consumers are in the last chance saloon for cheap energy deals and must act now if they want to keep their costs down."

And he warned the price increases may not be restricted to gas after EDF became the first major player to put electricity prices up, when it implemented a 2.6 per cent rise on October 1.

SSE said it had sold gas at a loss for years and claimed to have been the cheapest of the big six energy suppliers after it cut prices by 4 per cent in March.