I bet that I wasn’t the only person who said, ‘Nationalise the Feckers’, whenthe news broke that SSE was raining energy prices by 8.2%.Yes the company that
was fined £10.5M by OFGEM in April for ‘prolonged and excessive’ misselling had
increase the energy prices so that the average fuel bill for their 10M
customers in the UK rose by £106. But don’t
worry, they still had enough to pay their CEO a bonus of £1.8M last year.
One energy expert has said that this is ‘the final nail in the coffin ofaffordable energy’ while the citizen’s advice are expecting an ‘avalanche’ of
energy rises from the Big Six. The
charity’s chief executive said that she hopes ‘other energy firms should anunderstanding of their customers’ financial situation but no raising their pricesthis winters.’ Sadly, there is no chance of that happening.
The conduct of the Big Six over the last decade has re-opened the debate over
nationalisation of the energy market and we are now at the stage where I
believe that it is essential that ‘public ownership’ should be seriously
considered.
The Big 6 now have a monopoly over our energy market and have no issues over
holding the country to ransom. We saw
the reaction when Ed Miliband spoke of prices freezes. The Big 6 openly told the public that they
would raise their prices to and (even more) inflated price to recoup future
losses while also threatening ‘black outs’.
They believe that they have the right to bully, cajole and ignore our
democratic systems.
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| Who doesn’t dread their energy bills? |
This needs to stop and never again must an essential asset of the UK be left to
‘market forces’ susceptible of being manipulated for profitable means.
Our energy infrastructure is in crisis. Lack of investment by the private
sector has allowed an impeding energy crisis to come over the horizon. To the shame of the Big 6, our energy rich country
can no supply the energy demands of our nation.
The energy market is a complex market with different areas having different
needs. TO ensure that all these area’s needs are met there needs to be
leadership and direction for the long term strategy of the UK. This can be done far more efficiently if the energy
market was renationalised. Rather than
having an energy market that is geared towards profit making, we can have and
energy market that is considerate to the customers’ needs and the needs to
other stakeholders.
Over the last few years there has been a trend in Germany to ‘remunicipalise’
parts of the energy market. Over 400 stadtwerke companies have been created
since 2007. This new form of company, a public/public partnership between
cities and regions has a constitution that prioritises the interests of the
citizens over the interests of private enterprise.
We need to learn the lessons from the past and look at other successful nations
to ensure that our energy market is commonly owned to benefit society as a whole
and geared towards social needs not profitable needs. We need a co-ordinated strategy to ensure
that our energy market can provide sufficient energy for our nation’s need
while tackling climate change and providing a real alternative to our carbon
based economy.
