New schemes enable consumers to increase their power in the energy market by grouping together to negotiate a cheaper rate
Ali Hassan looks down at his neatly tended garden for a few seconds before trying to explain how it feels to choose between paying his energy bills and his mortgage.
"It’s difficult," says the 79-year-old quietly as his wife watches him from the doorway of their terrace house. "Everything has just gone up and up. It makes you ill, I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and well, if you can’t pay your bills you look like you are no one."