than previously thought. and coming up on the bbc news channel, two late james anderson wickets put england in a strong position after day one of the opening test against new zealand. good afternoon and welcome to the bbc news at one. the energy company centrica, which owns british gas, has seen its profits more than triple for last year because of rising oil and gas prices. the earnings were £3.3 billion, compared to £948 million from the year before. british gas was recently criticised for using debt agents to force fit pre payment meters into the homes of vulnerable customers. here s our business correspondent, theo leggett. net zero means hydrogen and solar. centrica says it is focused on clean energies of the future, but right now it s making bumper profits because of high oil and gas prices. they soared last year after the invasion of ukraine and the company, which owns british gas, is reaping huge benefits. last year it made £3.73 huge benefits. last year it made £
today at 1:00pm, more big profits for energy firms this time, centrica, owners of british gas, tripling revenues last year. their earnings were £35 billion, compared to less than a billion the year before. british gas has been heavily criticised over the use of pre payment meters for vulnerable customers. we ll have the latest. also on the programme. after her surprise resignation, the snp meets to draw up a timetable to find nicola sturgeon s successor. belarus leader alexander lukashenko says he ll allow russian troops to attack ukraine again from his territory. hope amid the despair. 11 days on, a teenage girl is rescued after the turkey syria earthquakes. and, the research that says antarctic glaciers are more sensitive to sea temperature changes
than previously thought. and coming up on the bbc news channel, two late james anderson wickets put england in a strong position after day one of the opening test against new zealand. good afternoon and welcome to the bbc news at one. the energy company centrica, which owns british gas, has seen its profits more than triple for last year because of rising oil and gas prices. the earnings were £3.3 billion, compared to £948 million from the year before. british gas was recently criticised for using debt agents to force fit pre payment meters into the homes of vulnerable customers. here s our business
british gas does is buy electricity and gas on wholesale markets and sell it to consumers and businesses will stop it made a profit last year but its profit was about £72 million. the profit made by centrica, the parent company, was £3.73 centrica, the parent company, was £3.3 billion and that s because the parent company makes its money from extracting mainly gas and selling it on the wholesale markets. it also made money from having a share in britain s nuclear energy as well. so why couldn t centrica four exam will give a lot of discounted gas to british gas? well, competition law means it can t do that, it has to sell at commercial rates equally to suppliers. so the reality of it is that british gas itself is in the same position as other suppliers. it doesn t make a huge amount of money when wholesale prices are high but the parent company does. the question is how those profits made by the parent company could be filtered down to help vulnerable consumers and that s where the