Liam Halligan: Will the cost of living crisis get worse thanks to the heavy weather?

Across the UK, many of us are now grappling with Storm Franklin. My train to the studio rolled in at a snail’s pace this morning, and almost didn’t make it to the capital.

England is now on a yellow weather warning, with parts of Northern Ireland on Amber. Much of Wales and Scotland are also experiencing heavy rain and high winds – bringing further disruption to the UK’s already storm-battered transport system.

Because Storm F for Franklin is now the third storm in a week to make landfall in the UK, following Storm D for Dudley and Storm E for Eunice.

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses across Britain are now without electricity or internet, on top of ongoing transport chaos, the result of this latest weather triple-whammy.

On cue, just as we’re experiencing yet more heavy weather, the energy regulator Ofgem has issued a report into the impact of Storm Arwen back in November. That left more than one million homes without power – with around 4,000 still cut off some ten days after Storm Arwen first struck.

Ofgem found some electricity companies were hard to reach, slow to pay compensation and gave inaccurate estimates of when power would be restored.

The regulators final report into the response to Storm Arwen in the spring, examining whether electricity providers should be fined. The Ofgem boffins will be busy – given that since Arwen, we’ve had more major storms, not least Eunice, the most serious in decades.

On The Money is focussed on the UK’s cost-of-living crisis, helping you to beat the squeeze. Energy costs are up around 30% year on year for millions of households – with prices set to spike again in April.

Firms are suffering too – there’s no price cap at all for business customers. So as the wind and rain lashes Britain, with tens of thousands of homes still cut off, here’s our On The Money question today.

Heavy UK weather: Will the cost of living squeeze get worse?