Martin Lewis

I mean, I should note that Octopus also has the Agile tariff where the electricity charge varies every half hour and is even more complicated, can be even more lucrative or even more costly if you get it wrong.

So let's just go through this.

The current unit rates on the standing charge on average...

for electricity is just under 25p, and that's going to rise to 26p in July.

For gas is 5.5p, rising to 7.33p in July.

So you're seeing it's 25, 26p for electricity, 5.5 to 7p on gas.

If I go, and I clicked it up as the question was being asked, to the page online that allows me to see

The way the tracker rate moves.

Well, on electricity, in October and November and December, it was almost always, last year, it was always in the sort of low 20p, so quite a lot cheaper than the price cap, so you gained.

Clearly, then suddenly this year, because of what's gone in the Middle East, wholesale rates have gone up.

So for electricity this year, we have seen quite a number of days where the tracker rate has been higher than the price cap.

We've also seen days where it's been as low as 17p.

I would say probably just looking at that graph and I'm doing a site estimate, so forgive me if I've got it wrong.

On electricity, it looks to be roughly around the current price cap rate of around 24p on average, some days more, some days less.

On gas, it's been quite a bit more expensive than the current rate.

It's been in the 6ps most days when it's 5.5p on the price cap.

But that's actually cheaper than the new price cap, which is going to be around 7p.

So where does all that bring us?

Where all that brings us is, I think, in this current crisis, if you could get off the tracker cap for a couple of months, it would probably be the safer option.

But you can't.