The Co-Operative, which has a customer base of 150,000, has announced an increase in its energy tariffs for the customers in the UK.

The Co-Operative urged the bigger rivals to focus on customers before profits as its hike was about half the rates announced by British Gas and SSE. It said that it is not transferring all of the rising costs to the customers as it is absorbing increased costs of buying wholesale energy as it increased prices by an average 4.5 per cent. The company also said that rise in tariffs will not impact existing energy users until January but will affect all new consumers from October 21.

British Gas has announced that it will increase the average electricity bills by 10.4 per cent and gas tariffs by 8.4 per cent adding pressure on the households in the UK. Power companies have been criticised for charging massive amounts to increase profits while households struggled to pay bills.

According to estimates, the value of energy bills has risen to twice their levels since 2000. Data showed that households last year spent an average of £1,339 on gas and electricity compared to £710 during the year 2010. The data showed that the gas bills went up by 119 per cent and electricity bills by 47 per cent between 2000 and the previous year.