Recent increases in wholesale energy prices are to be passed on to consumers in order to maintain the profit margins of privatised energy companies.
The result is a citizenry afraid to switch its heating on, come late October. The sharp increase is expected to push a further 500,000 households into fuel poverty this winter. Around 13% of households in England are already classed as fuel poor, 25% in Scotland, 12% in Wales.
That’s millions of people.
Many are our poorest and most vulnerable. For many people on Universal Credit it will come at the same time as the £20 payment is set to end.
The IG website for traders in securities markets tells you in a couple of sentences why there is an energy crisis in the UK: production takes place in order to satisfy the demands of Monopoly Finance Capital for profits for the few, not to cater for the needs of the many.
Stewart MacGill, convenor of the CP political economy commission has called to, “Restore the cap on price increases, make the capitalists take a cut in profit margins rather than further impoverish a working class already suffering from the effects of Covid. And renationalise, this is too important to be left to Monopoly Capital.”