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I'm David Aronovich. Welcome to the briefing room, the Metaversal Mind Chamber, where you, me, the top experts and a big subject collide and then resolve for 28 minutes.

Today, the energy crisis.

This winter, the lights didn't go out here or in Europe as we feared they might.

Energy prices, though horribly high, are dropping.

So, are we out of the woods or is there still trouble ahead?

Step inside the briefing room and together we'll find out.

First, let's remind ourselves of quite why we were so dreading this winter.

With me now in the briefing room is Natalie Thomas, energy correspondent at the Financial Times.

So Natalie Thomas, if you take us back to the autumn of last year, why were we so worried about energy prices then? So if we think back to

the start of September 2022, the previous month, UK gas prices had hit a fresh peak of almost 600 pence per therm.

This was unprecedented.

So there were two concerns, one, paying stratospheric prices to keep homes warm and lit during winter,

and actually whether we would have enough energy full stop to keep homes and businesses warm and open during the winter at all times.

Remind us what the government did back then.

So just a few days into her very short premiership, Liz Trust announced an extraordinary state intervention to protect businesses and households

from these stratospheric energy prices. She at the time promised to limit for households the price

per unit of electricity and gas that they could be charged by their suppliers so that a typical

bill would be around £2,500 per year. So for this winter at least, households have benefited from

that protection and a typical bill has been around £2,500 per year. At the start of the winter,

what were the price projections for electricity and gas? Well, if we take just a household bill combining electricity and

gas, without that price protection, a typical bill between October and the end of December would

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