What on earth is going on with the massive Bulb bailout? | Nils Pratley

4.6bn is an eye-watering amount for consumers to stump up - transparency from the government is long overdue

The most startling number in the Office for Budget Responsibility's economic outlook last week - aside from the gloomy big-picture forecasts - was found in a one-sentence footnote on page nine. The total cost of the Bulb Energy bailout has reached 6.5bn, with 4.6bn of that in 2022-23 included in the autumn statement," it stated baldly.

Let those figures sink in. Since March, when the OBR forecast that nationalisation of the bust energy supplier would cost 2.2bn, the figure has increased by the equivalent of almost 3,000 for each of Bulb's 1.5m customers. As one energy trader puts it, even under the April-to-September price cap of 1,971 and even with high wholesale prices, it ought it be almost impossible for Bulb to clock up losses of that size during the low seasonal period for consumption.