But how will the Tories make the rich more money that way?
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*Taxpayers missing out on up to £122bn of direct income as a result of privatised energy supply, TUC finds*
A nationalised energy company championing renewable and nuclear sources could save British households up to £4,400 over the next two years, new analysis suggests.
As the government steps in to artificially keep rocketing energy bills at £2,500, to the tune of tens of billions of pounds, research by the Trades Union Congress suggests that Britain’s reliance on its fully privatised energy market has left households with higher costs and dependent on foreign technology and investment.
Conversely, the TUC found, a new British state energy generation firm – in the vein of EDF in France or EnBW in Germany – would see the government receive between £63bn and £122bn in revenues over the next 24 months.
This equates to between £2,250 and £4,400 per household, according to the TUC, which has proposed spending £2.85 bn to nationalise five of the UK’s largest energy suppliers – British Gas, Ovo, E.ON, EDF, and Scottish Power.
If previous governments had not chosen to privatise the UK’s power plants, ministers could use such money to reduce bills and accelerate the rollout of home insulation, the TUC said.
The analysis comes as new prime minister Liz Truss stands firm against a public which appears to be largely in favour of a windfall tax on the vast profits of oil and gas giants reaping the unexpected benefits of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, with one YouGov poll finding three in four voters favour such a move.
“Privatisation has led to higher bills and colder homes,” said TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady. “We need a fairer, greener approach that stops energy companies using UK families like cash machines.
“French, Swedish and German families benefit from public ownership of electricity – why shouldn’t we? If we set up our own UK public energy champion, we can have lower bills, free home improvements to reduce our energy needs, and a safer climate for future generations.”
The TUC argued that public ownership of energy firms has enabled European countries to keep prices down and reinvest in communities.
While France faces a bill of some £8.5bn to nationalise the remaining 16 per cent of EDF, Germany has also moved to nationalise its largest gas importer, Uniper, at a cost of £7bn, in a bid to ease the crisis of soaring household bills sparked in large part by Mr Putin’s war.
Meanwhile, the European Union this week took aim at the “abnormally high profits” of energy companies, as it announced a windfall tax it hopes will raise around £121bn in order to ease the burden on consumers.
In its response to the crisis, Ms Truss’s new government has announced that it will cap energy bills at £2,500 per year for the average household, with a support package deemed by chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng to cost some £60bn in its first six months – a sum largely handed to private energy suppliers.
The government has also moved to bail out energy supplier Bulb, after dozens of firms went bust, in a move which consultancy Auxilione predicts could cost the taxpayer £4bn by April.
And in a dramatic mini-Budget on Friday, Mr Kwarteng announced a further £45bn-worth of tax cuts, mostly for mega-earners, effectively betting the UK economy in an all-out gambit driven by the Conservative ideology of “trickle-down” economics, in a move branded “Robin Hood in reverse” by the TUC.
Ms Truss’s new government has also lifted the moratorium on fracking, and given the green light to expansion of oil and gas extraction in the North Sea, which Scottish secretary Alister Jack said could lead to more than 100 new licences being granted and more than 70,000 jobs supported in Scotland.
In its analysis, however, the TUC argued that climate action could create more than a million new jobs, calling for a “major transformation” of the UK’s energy system to counter the “real risk that the climate transition will leave working people behind”.
Arguing that a nationalised energy generation firm could help the UK to ensure a “just transition” from fossil fuels to renewables as it seeks to avert climate disaster, the TUC suggested that a British “public energy champion” could build and control between 27 GW – 77 GW of new clean generation by 2040 if it sought to match scale of the rollout seen in France, Germany and Sweden.
According to the TUC, this would see the UK’s current capacity for generating renewable energy multiply by one to three times, and could represent between 9.5 and 27 per cent of the nation’s total electricity needs by 2050, in line with the forecasts for future usage by the government’s independent advisory body.
The Green Party told The Guardian, which first reported the analysis, that it supported the TUC’s findings, with co-leader Adrian Ramsay saying: “It’s important there’s more government ownership across all parts of the energy market so that we can ensure a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewables and secure our energy needs for the future.
“We do also need to support a diverse range of ownership models for energy generators and suppliers including local community, cooperatives and municipal that are close to the people they serve and can innovate.”
So multiply that £4,400 by however many families in the UK that could benefit and you’ll see why the govt and their paymasters will never allow to happen in fear (read: greed) of lost profits and backhanders.
But have they considered the impact on the wealthy? Surly that must be the priority for the country?
But cost a few shareholders a yaght and a holiday to monaco so no fucking way
​
~ Thick Liz probably
Nowhere in the calculations does it mention how it would fund acquiring the private property from the shareholders
I suspect that the full document uses the phrase “property is theft” liberally
Now all we need is the option to vote for people who will actually do shit to help out average households.
But that £4.4k taken out of the pockets of Tory chums and we can’t be having that!
The numbers make no sense.
“would see the government receive between £63bn and £122bn in revenues over the next 24 months.
This equates to between £2,250 and £4,400 per household”
So households are NOT saving £4,400, unless the Government decide to give everyone “free” gas and electricity and instead pay for it out of general taxation?
Mmm not sure about this, because there is no doubt in my mind that the Government would have to raise taxes to buy said energy companies
Yes, but that won’t make the Tories or their mates richer, it would be the responsible thing a Government should do to look after the hood of the people they serve. Which is why ours won’t do it.
The question really is….how do you separate big business ( donors) from party politics? Until this is achieved………..nationalisation vs privatisation is a useless discussion.
The maths of the matter have never been in question.
122bn/28m households is £4400, but that’s the price they’re paying for the energy, not a saving?
[deleted]
What, screw that hippy BS! What about those juicy fracking contracts that only exist because of the massive set up cost? If we start producing our own energy we will end up doing it in a cost effective way and use renewables that don’t require billions in tax payers money to put up a refinery!!!
Will someone think of Tarquinius share prices!!
The article doesn’t make much sense as it talks about nationalising suppliers which ATM are losing money. You can’t make money by acquiring an asset which loses money.
Bit of confirmation bias here, a trade union calling for nationalisation.
We all know this, we also know the people in charge won’t do it because it’ll cost them and their “friends” alot more.
If this comes as a surprise I have a bridge in London to sell you.
Energy bills were £1,000 just over a year ago.
Even without reading this I know this is bullshit analysis
Well, that certainly can’t be allowed to happen. /s
Which party is going to nationalise the companys? Labour are scared of even mentioning the N word.
Why did Margaret thatcher sell our utilities and council houses? Ffs that bitch ruined everything
This is one of the more idiotic articles I’ve seen…
So bills are £2500 a year… but this plan is supposed to save households (with the old broadband-marketing ‘up to’) £2200 a year. *Right.* Doesn’t sound very realistic does it?
And this £2200 is because we are supposed to get £122bn in revenues. Not profits, but *revenues*. And I checked the maths on the number of UK households, they really are claiming gross revenues per household as the savings. At what point does spin become just plain old untruth?
I’d attribute it to journalists being economically illiterate, but no, from the indirect quote in the article it appears the TUC are actually using those numbers as savings with a straight face.
If you want to make a case for nationalisation, by all means give it a shot. But don’t use joke numbers that make no sense. It doesn’t do the case any credit.
Headline:
>Nationalised energy company could save households £4,400 in two years
Text (my emphasis):
>… would see the government receive between £63bn and £122bn in **revenues** over the next 24 months. This equates to between £2,250 and £4,400 per household …
A totally unbiased analysis from the TUC, I’m sure
It used to be nationalised. Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.
Yes but to nationalise it the tax payer has to fork out billions if not trillions to shareholders of said energy companies to buy them out and then pay to run the companies. It’s not as easy as just nationalise it and we save 4 and a half grand each. Taxes would go up to cover the costs there would have to be some way for the govt to pay for it… and in the process of nationalising we’d likely have rolling blackouts.
Yes, because nationalizing everything has always been a success, a lot of us remember the 70s.
And then the USSR, everything was nationalized = success. No.
Why does the government not impose a windfall profit tax on energy companies and return that money to low income people and small businesses? This would essentially hamstring the energy companies’ attempts to carpetbag the raping of the consumers with the false energy price increases.
Steal £4000 from the mouths of hungry shareholders…you heartless animals!
I’m a little confused about this article/analysis. It mentions spending £2.85bn to acquire energy *suppliers*, then seems to spend the rest of the article talking about a mythical energy *generation* company and the benefits it could bring – without stating the setup costs for that. I suspect there would be order(s) of magnitude difference.
That’s not to say nationalising either would be bad, I just think this article is disingenuous.
32 comments
But how will the Tories make the rich more money that way?
Ad free version:
*Taxpayers missing out on up to £122bn of direct income as a result of privatised energy supply, TUC finds*
A nationalised energy company championing renewable and nuclear sources could save British households up to £4,400 over the next two years, new analysis suggests.
As the government steps in to artificially keep rocketing energy bills at £2,500, to the tune of tens of billions of pounds, research by the Trades Union Congress suggests that Britain’s reliance on its fully privatised energy market has left households with higher costs and dependent on foreign technology and investment.
Conversely, the TUC found, a new British state energy generation firm – in the vein of EDF in France or EnBW in Germany – would see the government receive between £63bn and £122bn in revenues over the next 24 months.
This equates to between £2,250 and £4,400 per household, according to the TUC, which has proposed spending £2.85 bn to nationalise five of the UK’s largest energy suppliers – British Gas, Ovo, E.ON, EDF, and Scottish Power.
If previous governments had not chosen to privatise the UK’s power plants, ministers could use such money to reduce bills and accelerate the rollout of home insulation, the TUC said.
The analysis comes as new prime minister Liz Truss stands firm against a public which appears to be largely in favour of a windfall tax on the vast profits of oil and gas giants reaping the unexpected benefits of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, with one YouGov poll finding three in four voters favour such a move.
“Privatisation has led to higher bills and colder homes,” said TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady. “We need a fairer, greener approach that stops energy companies using UK families like cash machines.
“French, Swedish and German families benefit from public ownership of electricity – why shouldn’t we? If we set up our own UK public energy champion, we can have lower bills, free home improvements to reduce our energy needs, and a safer climate for future generations.”
The TUC argued that public ownership of energy firms has enabled European countries to keep prices down and reinvest in communities.
While France faces a bill of some £8.5bn to nationalise the remaining 16 per cent of EDF, Germany has also moved to nationalise its largest gas importer, Uniper, at a cost of £7bn, in a bid to ease the crisis of soaring household bills sparked in large part by Mr Putin’s war.
Meanwhile, the European Union this week took aim at the “abnormally high profits” of energy companies, as it announced a windfall tax it hopes will raise around £121bn in order to ease the burden on consumers.
In its response to the crisis, Ms Truss’s new government has announced that it will cap energy bills at £2,500 per year for the average household, with a support package deemed by chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng to cost some £60bn in its first six months – a sum largely handed to private energy suppliers.
The government has also moved to bail out energy supplier Bulb, after dozens of firms went bust, in a move which consultancy Auxilione predicts could cost the taxpayer £4bn by April.
And in a dramatic mini-Budget on Friday, Mr Kwarteng announced a further £45bn-worth of tax cuts, mostly for mega-earners, effectively betting the UK economy in an all-out gambit driven by the Conservative ideology of “trickle-down” economics, in a move branded “Robin Hood in reverse” by the TUC.
Ms Truss’s new government has also lifted the moratorium on fracking, and given the green light to expansion of oil and gas extraction in the North Sea, which Scottish secretary Alister Jack said could lead to more than 100 new licences being granted and more than 70,000 jobs supported in Scotland.
In its analysis, however, the TUC argued that climate action could create more than a million new jobs, calling for a “major transformation” of the UK’s energy system to counter the “real risk that the climate transition will leave working people behind”.
Arguing that a nationalised energy generation firm could help the UK to ensure a “just transition” from fossil fuels to renewables as it seeks to avert climate disaster, the TUC suggested that a British “public energy champion” could build and control between 27 GW – 77 GW of new clean generation by 2040 if it sought to match scale of the rollout seen in France, Germany and Sweden.
According to the TUC, this would see the UK’s current capacity for generating renewable energy multiply by one to three times, and could represent between 9.5 and 27 per cent of the nation’s total electricity needs by 2050, in line with the forecasts for future usage by the government’s independent advisory body.
The Green Party told The Guardian, which first reported the analysis, that it supported the TUC’s findings, with co-leader Adrian Ramsay saying: “It’s important there’s more government ownership across all parts of the energy market so that we can ensure a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewables and secure our energy needs for the future.
“We do also need to support a diverse range of ownership models for energy generators and suppliers including local community, cooperatives and municipal that are close to the people they serve and can innovate.”
So multiply that £4,400 by however many families in the UK that could benefit and you’ll see why the govt and their paymasters will never allow to happen in fear (read: greed) of lost profits and backhanders.
But have they considered the impact on the wealthy? Surly that must be the priority for the country?
But cost a few shareholders a yaght and a holiday to monaco so no fucking way
​
~ Thick Liz probably
Nowhere in the calculations does it mention how it would fund acquiring the private property from the shareholders
I suspect that the full document uses the phrase “property is theft” liberally
Now all we need is the option to vote for people who will actually do shit to help out average households.
But that £4.4k taken out of the pockets of Tory chums and we can’t be having that!
The numbers make no sense.
“would see the government receive between £63bn and £122bn in revenues over the next 24 months.
This equates to between £2,250 and £4,400 per household”
So households are NOT saving £4,400, unless the Government decide to give everyone “free” gas and electricity and instead pay for it out of general taxation?
Mmm not sure about this, because there is no doubt in my mind that the Government would have to raise taxes to buy said energy companies
Yes, but that won’t make the Tories or their mates richer, it would be the responsible thing a Government should do to look after the hood of the people they serve. Which is why ours won’t do it.
The question really is….how do you separate big business ( donors) from party politics? Until this is achieved………..nationalisation vs privatisation is a useless discussion.
The maths of the matter have never been in question.
122bn/28m households is £4400, but that’s the price they’re paying for the energy, not a saving?
[deleted]
What, screw that hippy BS! What about those juicy fracking contracts that only exist because of the massive set up cost? If we start producing our own energy we will end up doing it in a cost effective way and use renewables that don’t require billions in tax payers money to put up a refinery!!!
Will someone think of Tarquinius share prices!!
The article doesn’t make much sense as it talks about nationalising suppliers which ATM are losing money. You can’t make money by acquiring an asset which loses money.
Bit of confirmation bias here, a trade union calling for nationalisation.
We all know this, we also know the people in charge won’t do it because it’ll cost them and their “friends” alot more.
If this comes as a surprise I have a bridge in London to sell you.
Energy bills were £1,000 just over a year ago.
Even without reading this I know this is bullshit analysis
Well, that certainly can’t be allowed to happen. /s
Which party is going to nationalise the companys? Labour are scared of even mentioning the N word.
Why did Margaret thatcher sell our utilities and council houses? Ffs that bitch ruined everything
This is one of the more idiotic articles I’ve seen…
So bills are £2500 a year… but this plan is supposed to save households (with the old broadband-marketing ‘up to’) £2200 a year. *Right.* Doesn’t sound very realistic does it?
And this £2200 is because we are supposed to get £122bn in revenues. Not profits, but *revenues*. And I checked the maths on the number of UK households, they really are claiming gross revenues per household as the savings. At what point does spin become just plain old untruth?
I’d attribute it to journalists being economically illiterate, but no, from the indirect quote in the article it appears the TUC are actually using those numbers as savings with a straight face.
If you want to make a case for nationalisation, by all means give it a shot. But don’t use joke numbers that make no sense. It doesn’t do the case any credit.
Headline:
>Nationalised energy company could save households £4,400 in two years
Text (my emphasis):
>… would see the government receive between £63bn and £122bn in **revenues** over the next 24 months. This equates to between £2,250 and £4,400 per household …
A totally unbiased analysis from the TUC, I’m sure
It used to be nationalised. Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.
Yes but to nationalise it the tax payer has to fork out billions if not trillions to shareholders of said energy companies to buy them out and then pay to run the companies. It’s not as easy as just nationalise it and we save 4 and a half grand each. Taxes would go up to cover the costs there would have to be some way for the govt to pay for it… and in the process of nationalising we’d likely have rolling blackouts.
Yes, because nationalizing everything has always been a success, a lot of us remember the 70s.
And then the USSR, everything was nationalized = success. No.
Why does the government not impose a windfall profit tax on energy companies and return that money to low income people and small businesses? This would essentially hamstring the energy companies’ attempts to carpetbag the raping of the consumers with the false energy price increases.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-30/uk-predicts-up-to-170-billion-excess-profits-for-energy-firms?leadSource=uverify%20wall
Steal £4000 from the mouths of hungry shareholders…you heartless animals!
I’m a little confused about this article/analysis. It mentions spending £2.85bn to acquire energy *suppliers*, then seems to spend the rest of the article talking about a mythical energy *generation* company and the benefits it could bring – without stating the setup costs for that. I suspect there would be order(s) of magnitude difference.
That’s not to say nationalising either would be bad, I just think this article is disingenuous.