MSE News: We'll freeze energy prices, Ed Miliband tells Labour conference

Richie-from-the-Boro

Naval gazing by the UK-GOV for 30 years brought us to this point, the 'do nothing and hope' strategy clearly has not worked yet we continue to 'do nothing and hope' little windy-mills and other non fossil megga expensive garbage renewable options will never miraculously be able to deliver cheap cost energy. Completely stop building the stupid useless little windy mills and build nuclear power stations. There's £50+ bi££ion going spare at the moment from the london-centric HS2, as a starter~for~ten use that to build and own our own nations power generation and national power security, at least the whole nation not just Boris's employees will benefit.

KTF

Quite a lot of the comments on the BBC about this have been picking up on the following:

We must not forget that Miliband was Labour Energy Minister when price rises started because of his policy of taxing energy firms to subsidise green energy plans. He had his chance when Labour had power and messed it up then and let us not forget which party/govt got us into this mess in the first place!

hanlou007

so for 20 months they will be fixed....a figure of £120 per household over that period has been used in the media.
So a massive £6 a month i'm going to better off until the end of the 20 months when my bill will probably go through the roof, and into the clouds.

Ed Millipede - You are a plonker and you sound like Nick Cleggless did years ago - promising the world to get a vote !!
You wont win even if you promise us all free fish n chips every week !!

:T

spikyone

verydeeppockets wrote: »

If we did build new power stations, who pays?
The utility companies won't - Ed's just told 'em that the 5% profit they make, partly to reinvest in infrastructure, isn't fair on the consumer.

Whilst I agree with much of what you say - and this is sheer idiocy from a political party who ran out of useful policies long before they were last turfed out of Downing Street - it's wrong to say that energy companies only make 5% profit. This is no more than sleight of hand, whereby energy companies generate the energy, then sell it to themselves at a far larger profit before selling it on to the end user at a small additional profit. It's a classic mis-direction that would make Derren Brown proud.

This ridiculous internalising of transactions is what really needs to be addressed. It's an almost identical situation to the tax avoiders who loan themselves money across borders so that they can offset the interest - which still registers as profit on a balance sheet somewhere within the company - against taxes elsewhere (I'm looking at you, Starbucks).

It shouldn't be beyond the wit of our 'leaders' to bring in laws to prevent that type of legalised money-laundering, but I expect they don't because it's not an easy vote-winner when compared with demonising those on benefits/dreaming up new benefits (depending on their political leaning).

scaredofdebt

Sort the banks out first!

scaredofdebt

spikyone wrote: »

Whilst I agree with much of what you say - and this is sheer idiocy from a political party who ran out of useful policies long before they were last turfed out of Downing Street - it's wrong to say that energy companies only make 5% profit. This is no more than sleight of hand, whereby energy companies generate the energy, then sell it to themselves at a far larger profit before selling it on to the end user at a small additional profit. It's a classic mis-direction that would make Derren Brown proud.

This ridiculous internalising of transactions is what really needs to be addressed. It's an almost identical situation to the tax avoiders who loan themselves money across borders so that they can offset the interest - which still registers as profit on a balance sheet somewhere within the company - against taxes elsewhere (I'm looking at you, Starbucks).

It shouldn't be beyond the wit of our 'leaders' to bring in laws to prevent that type of legalised money-laundering, but I expect they don't because it's not an easy vote-winner when compared with demonising those on benefits/dreaming up new benefits (depending on their political leaning).

Agreed.

nPower made a profit of £300M last year while the parent company RWE made 5.8 BILLION Euros - pre tax.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/nov/14/rwe-raises-2012-pretax-profits-forecast

Of course it's hard to work out how much of that profit was from the UK as it's a European wide company.

However, RWE has around 30 million customers, so that works out at 193 Euros profit (gross) per customer, or something like £180. But of course it's hard to work out how the profits are made, where they come from, where they go to and what other companies are involved etc.

chanz4

why don't they just lower the tax on the oil that these companys have to buy....or give up expense claims

Cardew

If the companies look like making a loss, if this stupid plan comes to fruition, the government will subsidise them from the Treasury.

Of course they won't call it a subsidy, so how can it be hidden? A development grant perhaps? Is that suitably vague?

PremierLeagueCanary

Not going to happen as Ed expects. As soon as an election is called, the big 6 energy companies will hike their prices to cover any potential losses they may incur in case Labour are elected. If Ed wants to control the price of energy the only way he can realistically do so is to re-nationalise the industry. Too much focus on Social Justice and not enough focus on investing in infrastructure and business.

molerat

About as much chance of it happening as ^^^^^^^^ putting winner in their user name