I have been critical in the past of the BBC coverage of these price hikes since they always failed to mention the root cause, UK North Sea peak, depletion and our subsequent reliance on imports but the coverage is improving... a little bit:

Q&A: What's behind gas price pressure?
Gas prices up nearly 13% - that's massive, what's the reason?
The problem for all energy suppliers is that the price they have to pay for gas and electricity, the wholesale price, has kept on going up.

EDF energy says that wholesale prices are now 80% higher than a year ago and have more than tripled since 2003.

What's been going on?
A variety of factors have been at play. Most of our gas still comes from the North Sea, but production has been declining faster than was expected.

As a result, the UK has had to import 5-10% of its total gas supplies. Meanwhile, the wholesale price of gas - which is linked on the continent to the price of crude oil - has been driven higher by record oil costs.

So what is wrong with importing more?
Not only has imported gas become more expensive, it's also been hard to get hold of.

However government remains woefully detached from reality regarding fuel poverty. This graph is from the recent (July 2006) energy review publication:

Click to enlarge (source: Energy Review, page 56)

The increases since 2003 are represented by a doubling of the number of people in fuel poverty... however clearly the trend is about to shift abruptly since by 2010 government are forecasting the numbers affected by fuel to come right down again (note the central price scenario assumes an oil price of US$40/barrel). Someone better tell British Gas.