Government gives in to energy suppliers

TruckerT

Up until now, the debate seemed to be about whether or not the energy suppliers were ripping us off. There have been lots of unsupported opinions about the short, medium and long-term movements of wholesale energy prices. But nobody seems to be able to come up with a full analysis of the energy suppliers' arithmetic. Why not?


The government has made a lot of noise about complicated energy tariffs, but they don't seem to understand the difference between a tariff and a price - tinkering with one will have little effect on the other.


Today's announcements about transferring a percentage of our energy bills over to our tax bills are a con. The government will claim to have reduced our energy bills, whilst the energy suppliers will celebrate their freedom to rake in the profits from their massive price rises.


TruckerT

grizzly1911

Whilst I am sure any reduction in green and social levies will indeed help with the bills we will still be taxed to make up for it.

At the same time the suppliers carry on their merry way as you say.

Vertical opaque industry.

Having just fixed for another 18 months it will interesting to see if any reduction is made not that £60 would really be noticed. The need to change supplier to achieve a better price has probably wasted twice as much in admin/overhead/marketing/promotional costs between the suppliers.

BobQ

A kneejerk reaction to Milliband's price freeze without the promise to investigate the cartel's profiteering.


An interesting point though, if energy suppliers get a reduction of £50 a customer but continue to charge that consumer the same price because they fixed, consumers will suffer a double whammy.

Graham_Devon

I do believe taxation should be clear. In terms of energy, this is the right thing to do, IMO.

It's just a shame it took this amount of pressure and the political pressure from Labour to do this.

Won't make much difference, but will make one key difference.

When energy companies raise their prices next year, as they will, they won't be able to blame green taxes any longer.

CLAPTON

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I do believe taxation should be clear. In terms of energy, this is the right thing to do, IMO.

It's just a shame it took this amount of pressure and the political pressure from Labour to do this.

Won't make much difference, but will make one key difference.

When energy companies raise their prices next year, as they will, they won't be able to blame green taxes any longer.

depends upon what is meant by green taxes: given the opacity of the pricing it's not clear at all.

TruckerT

CLAPTON wrote: »

depends upon what is meant by green taxes: given the opacity of the pricing it's not clear at all.

It's the opacity of the pricing which everybody was going on about, including the government interrogators' TV show. Media commentators, city experts, politicians - they were all up in arms about the pros and cons of the energy suppliers' price increases.


Why has nobody examined the energy suppliers' calculations, in detail, and provided an explanation for their need for such massive price increases?


TruckerT


ps - the energy suppliers seem to have a very clear view of things - no sign of any opacity there.

Thrugelmir

NPower doesn't seem to be finding the UK market overly profitable, in fact totally the reverse. Current discussion around bills is tinkering around the edges. As the investment required to keep the lights on is considerable. If the UK is to generate more by renewables rather than importation.

michaels

So much complaining and yet no sign of anyone on here launching their own company to reap a share of the huge profits that the existing companies are making.

Scrootum

Think we are not that pricy compared with the rest of Europe. Wish someone would define "too expensive".

CLAPTON

Scrootum wrote: »

Think we are not that pricy compared with the rest of Europe. Wish someone would define "too expensive".

do you mean net of taxes?

TruckerT

michaels wrote: »

So much complaining and yet no sign of anyone on here launching their own company to reap a share of the huge profits that the existing companies are making.

Actually, there are several so-called independent energy suppliers who appear to offer much better deals. One of them appeared on the Select Committee TV show, and said that his company was currently buying energy at a lower price than several years ago.


For some reason, neither the Select Committee nor the meedja has taken any interest at all.


Why are these companies described as 'independent'? In what way are the Big6 not 'independent'? Why has D.Cameron not been recommending these independents in his Parliamentary statements?


TruckerT