Nationalise the energy companies to end fuel price hikes
William Campbell
At the start of autumn it was reported that energy firms were going bust. It’s expected that from a high of 70 suppliers, by next year perhaps only the ‘Big Five’ energy companies will remain active in the market. Rising costs of gas supplies have driven many of the smaller companies to the wall.
At the start of the Covid pandemic last year, profits soared for energy firms. The UK’s biggest energy supplier, British Gas, saw a rise in profits of £172m for the first six months of the year, with the rise of hybrid working and more workers working from home household energy usage and costs have increased dramatically.
However as the pandemic continued, capitalism struggled to maintain its fragile logistical networks that delivered much of its sources of energy, gas and oil, meaning those rising profits became unsustainable.
These logistical networks have been throttled for many reasons; shortages of HGV drivers, a lack of gas supplies as the economy began to reopen, the Tories-led Brexit deal and mishandled lockdowns.
It’s also a failure of privatisation and the market system.
The plans put in place during the pandemic are orientated to protecting the profits of big business across the economy rather than the households who now face a price hikes of hundreds of pounds a year.
Increases that would push many working families under the poverty line and crucify millions already in poverty. The energy price surge comes just as wages are falling way behind inflation, now at 4% and rising.
The £20 cut to the universal credit uplift and the end to the furlough scheme have created a ‘perfect storm’.
Price caps were introduced in 2018 to supposedly prevent energy firms from ripping of their customers but since then have risen and this year is the highest ever.
They will inevitably rise again in spring 2022, allowing the big energy firms to continue to increase their tariffs that will result in placing the cost of the mishandling of global energy supplies onto working-class households.
nationalisation
Socialist Party Scotland calls for the energy firms to be democratically nationalised under workers’ control. Public ownership would also allow for a socialist plan for energy production based on renewables.
Instead of meaningless price caps that energy bosses can easily manoeuvre around, these firms should be managed by the majority of those that depend on these firms to deliver light and heating, i.e. the workers and households reliant on energy.
Compensation following nationalisation should be paid to shareholders only on the basis of proven need.
Prices would fall without having to pay out large dividends to shareholders and investors. We say put workers before profit and nationalise all energy firms!
