Why we should allow most of the current energy price rises through - Yorkshire Post Letters

I usually enjoy the forthright, lively and honest column that GP Taylor writes but although he brings to the fore the utter seriousness of the energy situation (The Yorkshire Post, August 25) his belief that government can allay most of the distress and pain, I believe, is mistaken.

In fact, in the same issue of The Yorkshire Post, John Riseley approaches the controversy with a logical and objective understanding of the underlying economics – far different from GP Taylor’s emotional outpouring.

GP Taylor fumes that the excess profits that are being made should be taxed away and, of course, this is manna from heaven to that segment of the electorate who have been infected with a worrying sense of entitlement.

Keir Starmer’s ruse, and it is little more than a ruse, is to cancel the imminent rises

which would not only play

havoc with the country’s finances but in no way solve the core problem.

That problem is one of a rapid decline in the supply of energy and the government has minimal control of it, particularly in the short term.

It is the egregious, free-wheeling Putin and the greedy mouths of Opec that control supply – the latter wallowing in vast dunes of opportune cash.

Although the state has little control of supply, as Mr Riseley articulates, we can affect things by curtailing demand and, although it may seem a callous move, a rise in prices will do just that.

In other words, we should allow most of the current rises through. People and businesses will respond and economise, and demand will gradually fall. This approach, of course, will require direct assistance to ease the anguish.

The ultimate answer to this issue is, of course, a long term one in developing our own resources such as non-subsidised renewables, possibly fracking and North Sea oil, the latter dependent on the enterprise of the big companies that so many commentators like GP Taylor detest and urge that all their profits should be taxed and used to ease the burden without understanding that this may inhibit any desire for these companies to go ahead if their costly ventures are subject to the lottery of government whim.