Npower keeps the North frozen

Britain's biggest electricity supplier has been accused of misleading its customers with a phoney price cut.

Npower boasted it would cut its electricity prices by an average of three per cent from the end of next month.

But it emerged yesterday that about half of its four million electricity customers will not see a single penny cut.

The German-owned company is cutting only in parts of the country where it has relatively few customers and hopes to attract more.

London will see cuts of 14 per cent but in the North, Yorkshire and the Midlands where Npower is already the main supplier, prices will be frozen or fall by just 0.9 per cent.

Adam Scorer, director of campaigns at Energywatch, attacked the firm for boasting about a "fake" price cut.

He said: "They are rewarding loyalty with higher prices - and just going after the new customers in other parts of the country. It is a fake price cut.

"They must think to themselves: 'Why cut prices in areas where we are dominant? Most of the customers are going to stick with us because of inertia. We might lose some, but not many.'"

He said it was a "very, very disappointing" trick by the company, which raised its electricity prices three times last year.

The huge regional variations in Npower's price cut mean it can accurately claim that the average electricity bill is coming down by three per cent.

Yesterday the firm insisted it had not intended to mislead its customers into thinking they are getting a great deal.

A spokesman said: "There is nothing hidden about it. We have to compete more keenly in areas where nobody knows us."