Brexit could give UK householders a £500m a year “electric shock”, according to the energy and climate change cecretary Amber Rudd.
Costs could rocket because we would have to leave the European internal energy market, she will say on Thursday, quoting a report produced by the network operator, the National Grid.
“The UK’s membership of the European Union has helped keep our energy bills down,” she will say. “If we left the European internal market, we’d get a massive electric shock because UK energy costs are likely to rocket by at least half a billion pounds a year.”
The EU also provides a protection against being bullied by Vladimir Putin over Russian gas, Rudd will tell employees during a visit to the site of an interconnector pipeline in Kent, which brings electricity supplies from the continent.
“As a bloc of 500 million people, we have the power to force Putin’s hand,” she will say.
“We can use the power of the internal market to source gas from elsewhere. To put it plainly – when it comes to Russian gas, united we stand, divided we fall.”
