Energy prices go up again – “What a surprise”, says Roger
Posted by Roger Godsiff, MP for Birmingham, Hall Green, at 09:54, Mon 21 October 2013:
Speaking to Party activists at a meeting in his constituency, Roger slated the latest announcement by British Gas that they are raising their prices for gas and electricity by nearly 10%. This followed on from the recently announced rise by SSE, another of the big energy companies. Said Roger: “These energy giants, which are nearly all part of globalised multi-national corporations, really do think us consumers are a bunch of fools. When Ed Miliband recently announced that a future Labour Government would freeze gas and electricity prices for 20 months, they went ballistic with threats of blackouts and shutdowns. While household energy bills have risen by 29% in three years the senior management of these companies have been paying themselves vast salaries and bonuses, and the shareholder payout from British Gas, Centrica, Scottish and Southern Electricity and National Grid alone is £3.4 billion in dividends. "What Ed Miliband was suggesting was a very modest proposal”, continued Roger, “whereas in my opinion energy supply companies should be taken back into public or community ownership because there is no real competition between these companies. You can be absolutely guaranteed that the other big companies will soon be announcing electricity and gas rises very similar to those announced by British Gas and SSE.”
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Posted by Mohammed Hemraj, 11:17, Mon 21 October 2013: (Is this post abusive?) #
Freezing gas prices is nothing but an election gimmick. To curb the monopoly, I believe in the government having a say in what is the reasonable amount of price increase. The privatisation of post office was because of government not having enough money required for future efficiency gain. So taking energy back into public ownership is out of question as there is no money. The price increase, we are told, is due to the need to develop and maintain pipelines and the government insisting that they should invest in the alternative clean energy like wind farming which is costly and not cost efficient. Personally, I would prefer public/private ownership and this would allow the government to share in the dividends.
What I am personally interested in is in knowing how much these energy companies give in political donations.
Posted by Colin, 13:39, Wed 23 October 2013: (Is this post abusive?) #
Ed. Milliband's proposal was far from 'modest'; it amounts to Government price-fixing of the sort seen in the communist regimes, so beloved by Ralph Milliband. The energy companies' response to this may well have triggered the current round of increases. At least Mr. Godsiff has more courage than his leader, in calling for re-nationalisation. It may well be that some infrastructure is not suitable for private ownership. However, the country is bankrupt, so this is not an option. The market should be opened up to many more Companies, including community co-operatives, so that we could test these Companies' claims on costs & challenge their monopoly positions.
Posted by Mohammed Hemraj, 10:15, Thu 24 October 2013: (Is this post abusive?) #
Where did Britain go wrong? In my opinion by privatising rail and gas and electricity and the common masses having to pay for it in terms of increase in fair and energy bills. The worst was pumping in tax payers money to save the collapse of banks. With hindsight what the British government should have done is to nationalised these banks and take them in the public ownership without payment of any compensation and with it, it would have ended the bonus culture. The country is bankrupt because of the austerity measures and giving away the taxpayers money which could have been used in the economic development of this country. It does not make sense to me that when the banks make profit it goes to the shareholders and when it makes losses due to toxic assets, the taxpayers have to pick up the bill and not the shareholders.