Gas & Leccy Providers.. Any insight much appreciated???!

Imagine hating high energy prices so much you're going to gift energy companies £400 for every household to keep prices high.

Pretty much sums it up.
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
The taxpayer has benefited from low rates when it was "good" though.

Looking through my last few years of DD's with my current supplier we've largely paid £50-65 a month.

By the same argument people could have put extra money aside for when prices might go up. Neither is really realistic.

They're obviously not in an industry with guaranteed cash flow given how many went bust due to becoming insolvent due to rocketing prices. The Uk energy market raced to the bottom on price for years and as prices shot up, they couldn't cope. Lot of energy suppliers have been loss making for years, but making the money back on generation. France insulated from price rises because their industry is nationalised. Most European countries are doing schemes similar to the Uk. If anything the government could do more by reducing vat, green levvies etc

What subsidy are you talking about that will cover their losses? The £400? If so that crazy talk. It is going direct to consumers by reducing the cost of their energy bill by £400 when bills are going up to £3600. It's not enough, but it certainly isn't going to cover energy suppliers losses from mid to late 2021 to whenever this eventually starts to go away, if it ever does.

Other assistance given has been on council tax and direct to bank accounts for those that qualify for the criteria, again more can be done but that's not energy suppliers, it's the government.
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62 million people in this country £400 each is almost 25 billion £, plus the cap will have tripled since 2021, yes they absolutely will make their losses back and then some and it is not going directly to the consumer it is going directly to the energy companies.

Business and prices were low relatively but they could have been lower, it was still profiteering of an essential service. No one is claiming energy companies need to offer assistance here but expecting a business to have reserves, especially in a market that has volatile costs is basic business sense. Some companies went bust after less than 3 months of losses. They where giving shareholders multimillion £ returns and have high corporate salaries, an expectation they build a robust business with reserves is not crazy!

On your point about the individual, how can someone on UC or minimum wage p"put something aside" it is not the same and attempting to portray it as such is not accurate. A company making millions in profit compared to the high percentage of this population who live pay day to pay day is a disingenuous comparison but on that, do you have savings? Some of the population have that luxury and they put money away "for emergencies" or "a rainy day"
The government can and should do more and the energy companies either need to nationalise or re-regulated to ensure they build a more robust business model that can handle price volatility in the market without having to dump huge costs back onto the billpayer.

It is absolutely fair that they take a hit in profits first before it impacts the consumer's pockets, their owners and execs (even those that have went bust) have made millions off the taxpayer and yes it essentially is guaranteed custom, like water you can't really live without heating or electricity. The £400 help should be going direct to consumers who are best placed to decide how/where to spend that money to ease the burden of the cost of living, instead, it is going to business, along with the tripling of the cap (by October compared to 2021) that means the consumers are again paying for businesses failures.
 
I wonder what would have happened if the Gov had just said the price cap can only go up 10%, not 50%.

And if the BIG 6 went bust would the supply suddenly stop?

I doubt it.
 
JonnyHistory said:
62 million people in this country £400 each is almost 25 billion £, plus the cap will have tripled since 2021, yes they absolutely will make their losses back and then some and it is not going directly to the consumer it is going directly to the energy companies.

Business and prices were low relatively but they could have been lower, it was still profiteering of an essential service. No one is claiming energy companies need to offer assistance here but expecting a business to have reserves, especially in a market that has volatile costs is basic business sense. Some companies went bust after less than 3 months of losses. They where giving shareholders multimillion £ returns and have high corporate salaries, an expectation they build a robust business with reserves is not crazy!

On your point about the individual, how can someone on UC or minimum wage p"put something aside" it is not the same and attempting to portray it as such is not accurate. A company making millions in profit compared to the high percentage of this population who live pay day to pay day is a disingenuous comparison but on that, do you have savings? Some of the population have that luxury and they put money away "for emergencies" or "a rainy day"
The government can and should do more and the energy companies either need to nationalise or re-regulated to ensure they build a more robust business model that can handle price volatility in the market without having to dump huge costs back onto the billpayer.

It is absolutely fair that they take a hit in profits first before it impacts the consumer's pockets, their owners and execs (even those that have went bust) have made millions off the taxpayer and yes it essentially is guaranteed custom, like water you can't really live without heating or electricity. The £400 help should be going direct to consumers who are best placed to decide how/where to spend that money to ease the burden of the cost of living, instead, it is going to business, along with the tripling of the cap (by October compared to 2021) that means the consumers are again paying for businesses failures.
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They did take a huge hit in profits. Energy prices have been high for a year now but it only started to show in bills early in 2022.
 
So as an indicator

I fixed until Aug 23 with British Gas (was the energy provider to the house when I moved in) at the start of July for £240/month for Gas & Electric

Just ran a comparison that BBS linked on page 1 and it throws up a quote of £366/month for a 3 bed semi
 
JonnyHistory said:
62 million people in this country £400 each is almost 25 billion £, plus the cap will have tripled since 2021, yes they absolutely will make their losses back and then some and it is not going directly to the consumer it is going directly to the energy companies.
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It's 29m households not per individual so the government are giving just under £12bn to the energy companies to keep their profits intact.

If you compare this with the billions wasted on dodgy PPE, £37bn on a sh*t test and trace system, £4.7bn written off in fraudulent furlough loans.......you think the government could be doing a bit more.......

No, increase NI, taxes, shaft the average worker.....and yet people STILL can't see they are being bent over time, and time, and time again 🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️
 
h_m_boro said:
It's 29m households not per individual so the government are giving just under £12bn to the energy companies to keep their profits intact.

If you compare this with the billions wasted on dodgy PPE, £37bn on a sh*t test and trace system, £4.7bn written off in fraudulent furlough loans.......you think the government could be doing a bit more.......

No, increase NI, taxes, shaft the average worker.....and yet people STILL can't see they are being bent over time, and time, and time again 🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️
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Apologies for my mistake on the household, not the individual. £12 billion is still a huge subsidy though and offsets a lot of losses, the rest will be made up by the high cap. The windfall tax on oil raised around £5 billion? but we are subsidising these energy companies to the tune of £12 billion, the whole thing is a shocking indictment of how little they are trying to help those in need, the bare minimum and not a penny more.
You are absolutely right, there is always taxpayers money to bail out business and for politicians vanity projects, but when it comes to voters and any crisis we have the narrative becomes " there is no magic money tree" and we have to carry the load.
 
JonnyHistory said:
Apologies for my mistake on the household, not the individual. £12 billion is still a huge subsidy though and offsets a lot of losses, the rest will be made up by the high cap. The windfall tax on oil raised around £5 billion? but we are subsidising these energy companies to the tune of £12 billion, the whole thing is a shocking indictment of how little they are trying to help those in need, the bare minimum and not a penny more.
You are absolutely right, there is always taxpayers money to bail out business and for politicians vanity projects, but when it comes to voters and any crisis we have the narrative becomes " there is no magic money tree" and we have to carry the load.
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You're not really explaining how giving tax payers £400 off their bill protects energy firms "profits"? They would have been due the money anyway for everyone of the households that receive the payment, its just it comes from the government instead of the bill payer. It's not like they're getting £400 free for every bill, its £400 taken off every bill. no extra money is being created for them here, and the price cap is set separately based on actual costs which generally lag by a few months anyway.
 
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