Energy price vote – will MPs support fatcat businesses or cash-strapped voters?
Cost shock: Even the Conservative-supporting Daily Telegraph has been complaining about high energy prices – as demonstrated by this cartoon from 2012.
This will sort out the adults from the children in the House of Commons. From LabourList:
Labour will be holding an Opposition Day debate on a motion “requiring the Government to introduce fast-track legislation giving Ofgem the powers to cut bills when wholesale prices fall but the energy firms do not cut bills for customers” [taking place tomorrow – Wednesday, January 14].
Mr Miliband said that the “zombie Government” has had no meaningful legislation for months, but this is an opportunity to cut energy bills and do something for the British people.
He said: “Millions of people have been ripped off by the big energy firms who never seem to pass on savings to customers. In the last year, wholesale energy costs have fallen by between 9 per cent and 20 per cent but no supplier has reduced the price of their standard tariff.
“The next government is committed to making to big changes in our energy market: freezing energy prices until 2017 so that bills can fall but not rise, resetting the market and bringing in a tough new regulator to stop the rip-offs in the future.
“But now George Osborne, who used to warn such measures were impossible, is claiming he understands that the energy market is broken. So next week, we’ll give him, David Cameron and Nick Clegg the chance to help all those families they have been ripped off by the energy companies under this government.”
This should be fun – if only because of the excuses we’ll hear.
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What’s the betting the Tory sheep will vote for the fat cat energy providers, the Labour MPs will vote against them and the Lib Dems won’t bother! As usual basically!
I think the point is to show the voters where each party stands on a fairly straightforward issue.
I think the libdumbs will vote with the gov because klegg will do anything his masters tell him to do.
I can almost guarantee one of the arguments against the Labour motion will be “the gov is already going to/has plans to/in the future will…” and as such it would be “silly” to pass the motion when there is intention to do “something” at “some point in the future.”
Also the odious toff (Can’t remember his name, the one who’s nanny/mum? drives him around when he canvases) on the ConDem benches will no doubt spout some crap… dear god that odious toff ****ard loves to hear his own voice.
Jacob Rees-Mogg.
the tories will be holding out their hands for more from said companys
It certainly will be interesting. The power generators already get huge subsidies from government. If it ever gets built, Hinkley C (the new nuke) will cost @£24Bn and when (if) it comes online in 2023 it will have a guaranteed price of £92 per MWh that’s approximately double the price it is now. So the government are banking on prices more than doubling in the next 8 years. Or more likely a further subsidy of £800 million to £1.2Bn per year for the projected shortfall. EDF are building it, so profits via UK subsidy are lining the pockets of the French state. With bankrupt economics like this its little wonder that energy prices are so high.
I agree with you 100 per cent.
I’d nationalize the energy companies. Private companies are very good when there is lots of choice like with the mobile phone companies (perhaps the one bit of privatisation that has worked as it’s supposed to.) But when there is either a monopoly or a few companies who collude with each other as much as they can get away with to push up prices, and when it’s something that people can’t make themselves or do without the result is terrible.
Agreed. I’d nationalise too, and I reckon that might happen if Labour is elected in May.
Don’t hold your breath on that one, Milliband’s talk of freezing energy prices (and let’s not forget, it’s just that, talk)
It has already made the energy companies shy away from cutting prices.
Remember, companies must make a profit so that the “market” will invest in them.
It’s not just talk. If he’s elected, he’ll do it. The debate today is about trying to get it done even sooner than that.
Remember, those companies are making a huge profit because they aren’t even handing down the benefit of cuts in (for example) gas prices.
People using coal (and oil) should also be included in this.
My coal man hasn’t reduced his coal prices EVER! They have tripled in the last 10 years. If I used the same amount needed to keep the house warm now I’d be paying £60 per week. We only live 10 minutes away from town by car, but he puts an extra £3 per week on the coal as compared to other merchants, knowing that we’ll buy from him as we’re high up here(he lives here) and can get snowed in from time to time.
I have no choice but to use my burners as I’m actually allergic to gas and electric heating, the only logical fuel to move onto.
I totally agree with you, yes £60.00 per week to keep a log burner going it’s crazy and it wont come down, we also use 19 kg bottle gas for a top hob, that has increased from £17.00 to £34.50 in the last four years, one wonders why people struggle to live.
Have you considered putting two fire bricks either side to reduce the burning space it does help.
We to get snowed in most years six weeks in 2012 the worst I have experienced
Greed greed greed I think it has reached a saturation point as who can afford it any longer.