Energy price rises must be tackled urgently

ANYONE on Edinburgh’s Princes Street these past few months will have noticed Scottish Socialist party members campaigning against the exorbitant cost of gas and electricity.

Customers will have seen their bills increase by a further 19 per cent taking the average combined gas and electricity charge to about £1,500 per household at a time when wages, benefits and pensions have not gone up, while the winter fuel payment to senior citizens has actually been cut.

Is it any wonder people are furious? The energy companies are seen as incompetent at best, having repeatedly increased charges year after year and last month the energy watchdog fined British Gas £2.5m for failing to deal with customer’s complaints properly.

The £1.3bn profit by Centrica, its parent company, simply adds fuel to the raging flames. Anger is also aimed at Government for cutting support to the most vulnerable and abandoning previous commitments to eradicating fuel poverty by administrations at Holyrood and Westminster.

Above all, there is the lack of a coherent energy strategy that is the problem to solve in the short term.

We need to double the winter fuel allowance and give much more immediate help to those in extreme fuel poverty. We need to increase our energy efficiency and reduce overall consumption by insulating all our existing housing stock in the longer term.

We need to follow the example of those countries that have successfully diversified from oil and gas and invested in renewable forms of energy. Given the abject disregard the energy companies have shown for their social responsibilities, we must take the industry back into public ownership.