Ed Miliband hits back at energy firms over prices plan

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24235688

He's right in the sense that the firms would tell you any old crap (probably whilst avoiding tax), but then so would he I suspect...

While I'm not sure his idea is workable, the fact the energy company's first idea in response was "well, if our profits fall its very possible there'd be power cuts" is perilously close to blackmail and won't help their case at all.

I see he neglects to mentions the cost of subsidising green energy projects that the government is forcing onto them/us.
He could cut bills in a second if he reduced /scrapped that.

I think it's a bit naive to suggest that if we lower the power industry's costs they will lower their prices. This whole argument is predicated on the fact that there's a reams of evidence that shows that it hasn't happened in the past.

IMO, the problem is the market in domestic power supply in the UK simply doesn't work properly. There is little actual competition and the suppliers drag their heels and kick and scream every time any measure designed to make switching easier is enforced on them. They also supply smart meters but lock them down so the only parts that work are the parts that benefit them, not the parts that the consumer could use to reduce their bills. And they're all doing the same things and following each other on price anyway, so there is only the illusion of choice.

A proper market would and could work but the companies involved to everything that can to stop it because it's not in their interests for it to work. And OfGen is about as much use as a cocktail umbrella in a hurricane. If we had a regulator with actual teeth and companies with a less rapacious attitude it might all work, but we don't, so it doesn't.

You cannot blame the politicians for the industry failing to invest. If it were a public body then the politicians had the power to make them build new plants. Also by failing to invest the industry can screw more tax subsidies out of the government desperate to comply. No government wants to be tarred withe reputation that it was them that turned the lights out.

Just saw Milliband on the BBC 6pm News. So, he'd freeze energy prices at the level they are at the time of the next election.
Am I the only one who sees the massive flaw in that plan?

The energy companies have had a very long time to make investments in the power station infrastructure but it simply hasn't been in their interests to do so in any significant ways so they haven't.
It would be a pleasant surprise if the politicians and/or the regulator called them on it and made them put in some serious investment but I can't help thinking that's unlikely whatever their political stripe. It's also getting a bit too bloody late for building new power stations before the old ones shut down.

I'm not going to waste my precious karma defending the power utilities. But they have been prevented from investment by government policy over the last decade or more. The problem is they need to raise and spend tens of billions of pounds of capital (which would still be true even if they were state owned). But the government has for a long time refused to put together an energy policy, which undermines their ability to work out what capacity they can economically install (they have to get the return on that capital in order to repay it after all).

If a decisive government was able to make its mind up about nuclear power one way or the other; decide whether to allow coal at all, and what level of environmental charges to plonk on top of it; and settle all the issues with renewable energy (commitments, subsidies, transmission lines etc); then they could fill out their spreadsheets and have a decent idea of how many billions to borrow, how much to spend on baseline power, what excess capacity is required and so on.

Wishing for them to just spend billions on what you vaguely assume we need (or having the government order them to do that) is not going to help.

exactly - we should have 5 yrs ago started building 1/2 a dozon or so new Nuclear Plants and new gas plants but with all politicians only caring about the short term they dont want to make any decisins that might make them (more) unpopular so will put it off knowing that 10 - 20 yrs down the line they will not be in power and so will not ahve to worry when the lights go off

Caroline Flint rejects Mandelson's criticisms and points to peer's financial interests in energy companies

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... ice-freeze

I'd forgotten about his windfall tax...

Mandleson criticising something almost by itself makes it seem a better idea.

Indeed