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Opinion

Affordable energy should be a right, not a privilege

10 Feb 2023 4 minute read
Hywel Williams

Hywel Williams, Plaid Cymru MP for Arfon

While the Westminster bubble looked inwards at internal Tory squabbles and reshuffles this week, the scandalous treatment of people using prepayment meters was largely ignored. Thousands of households in poverty have been forced to pay exorbitant rates for their energy through the forced installation of prepayment meters.

The policy is a shameful penalty on poverty and exemplifies the cruelty at the heart of Westminster’s treatment of the vulnerable. It’s a clear indication of a broken society when predatory profiteers are able to operate not with a business model but with an extortion racket.

This higher rate, introduced by the Labour government, was supposed to cover the added costs of installing and running these meters. What has been clear for a long time though is that energy companies have been pushing more prepayment meters onto customers on low incomes, because they find it more difficult to pay monthly or directly from their bank account.

Disturbing

What’s even more disturbing is that energy companies have been granted warrants to break into homes by force to install these meters. This practice has been rubber-stamped by magistrates in batches of hundreds, with no regard for individual circumstances. The result has been that vulnerable populations, including those on low benefits, those with mental health issues, the disabled, families with small children, and older individuals relying solely on their pension, have been paying more than they should, on top of the recent steep increase in energy prices.

Earlier this week, Lord Justice Edis, the judge who oversees the workings of all courts in England and Wales, banned the practice of passing warrants in batches ‘until further notice’. In response to this, an Urgent Question was posed in the House of Commons, where MPs raised concerns about the breaking into homes by private agents and the high cost of energy.

Rather than go after the same points, I took up the political issue. I noted that Grant Shapps, the then Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, now the New and Improved (ahem) Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, had said that the energy regulator Ofgem had allowed itself ‘to have the wool pulled over their eyes’. He also said that Ofgem had been taking companies ‘at their face value’.

Fit for purpose

The obvious questions which I asked were: Who was pulling the wool? What penalty they should face? Is a regulator that allows the wool to be pulled over its eyes fit for purpose? Is a Secretary of State who allows such a scandal to occur fit for purpose?

I won’t trouble you with the details of the answer I got. But it was along the lines of, not now, let’s concentrate on the people who have been failed by the system. The Minister had already spent half the session doing just that, and defending his government’s position. Looking at the system that allowed all this to happen is indeed the most vital question for the future.

There used to be something called accountability in Westminster. The Ofgem boss and Secretary of State take responsibility for this scandal and step down from their roles.

We also need to see action to protect vulnerable households to the future.

Disabled people

The energy crisis is disproportionately impacting disabled people, with a third of disabled adults telling the charity Scope that their impairment or condition has a significant impact on their energy costs.

This is particularly concerning in Wales, with the latest statistics showing that the percentage of those with a disability is 6% higher than the UK average.

The UK Government and Ofgem must now take a proactive step now to protect vulnerable households by using an expanded and backdated windfall tax to introduce social tariffs for energy rates. Rather than punishing the vulnerable with higher rates, we should be helping them with lowered rates.

Much like the indefensible policy that means households in north Wales pay the highest rate of electricity per kilowatt-hour in the UK must stop, disparities based on how people pay their bills must also end.

We need a future where vulnerable people can live their lives with dignity.

It’s time for Westminster to ensure that affordable energy is a right, not a privilege.


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Neil Anderson
Neil Anderson
1 year ago

Brava, Hywel! Stepped tariffs are the easiest way to ensure a lifeline supply at lowest cost to those who are least well off – beneficiaries, pensioners and poorly-paid workers – and could be introduced quickly. For those on the upper steps, there would always be an incentive to reduce consumption (energy is a pollutant from extraction to end use). To inflation-proof energy costs, Cymru should move quickly to utilise our energy income – solar, wind, tidal, wave – and nationalise the suppliers and the grid (post-independence). Vast employment opportunities lie in local manufacture, deployment and maintenance. Nuclear is clearly inflation-prone,… Read more »

CJPh
CJPh
1 year ago
Reply to  Neil Anderson

Brava? Jeez…

Steve Duggan
Steve Duggan
1 year ago

Years ago I remember prepayment meters being cheaper and actually gave you some money back ! Using the tokens I remember claiming money back on a number of occasions, not a great deal but it was something. These days it is all about profit, how much can be screwed out of an individual is all that is thought about by many companies and not just in the energy sector, it’s endemic in our society. The least the UK government can now do is stop the huge energy rise in April – will it? I have my doubts. Money first, people’s… Read more »

Mark
Mark
1 year ago

Energy should be re-nationalised.

hdavies15
hdavies15
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark

Given the lack of ethics in government I wouldn’t trust those clowns any further than the pirates running the energy companies. The main problem is that energy is never a competitive market in the true sense. It’s become dominated by a government appointed oligopoly who extract funds from customers and deliver tax ( VAT, fuel excise etc) to the Treasury. Cozy arrangement with no motivation to pay anything other than lip service to customers.

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 year ago

Same rules apply in the UK as the Serengeti…feed off those that take the least effort to bring down…

Sikejsudjek
Sikejsudjek
1 year ago

Wales must get the profits from wind power, not the crown estates and not multinationals or Westminster. The Tory privatised system only benefits the rich.

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