This new gas price proposal is bonkers

[whenwillthemadnessend]

Tying us into a possible 20 year loan at a cost of 90-130 billion with no guarantee of future gas prices and no incentive for people to change behaviour to save gas save money and save the planet

I may be dead in 20 years and my kids will be paying this off for ever plus covid.

It's the worst idea ever!!!!

I doubt it, just grateful that the heating bills are reasonable and affordable for everyone and we can use the money to do other things

You will still be paying quite a lot more per unit than last year, so I guess it depends what you can afford.

There’s a gap between the tax at £8bn and what it’s going to cost to avert companies plunging and people

We’re up to crazy figures again £100bn

I bet there’s regret over previous spending over last few years which is already astronomical

It’s not really capped though, it’s just putting a cap on the price per KWh. So if you decide to start showering 2 hours a day at 35p/kWh then expect huge bills! 😂

Actually most of the WW2 debt was inflated away during the 1970s and not actually "paid" off through taxation being higher than Government spending.

I do think it is morally wrong to burden the younger generation with high levels of debt so that there is less money from taxation to spend on services .

The annual interest bill on the current Government debt of £2.5 trillion is currently £95 billion and rising. By comparison the Government entire educational budget is £100 billion per year.

It seems that once again our children and young people are being asked to sacrifice their tomorrows so that the older generation can have their todays.

It's only the rate per unit that's capped. If you turn your heating up to the max and have long showers, then it's still going to be very expensive.

£2500 at the proposed price cap amount doesn't pay for a huge amount of energy and it's still more than twice as much as it was during winter 2020/21 before prices started to rise.

The last payment was sent by Alistar Darling in 2006.

Does it matter if it was interest or debt?

But then, if the UK gov refused to pay, couldn't the energy be sold to elsewhere?

Certainly not in my case - I was already using energy very conservatively, which is part of the problem - there's little I can cut back on. CH was only ever on for an hour a day even in minus temperatures, for example.

On another thread a poster called @vera99 posted an article which includes this quote which is relevant to this discussion and sums up why i feel the costs should not be heaped onto us: Remember the huge increase in energy prices means incredible profits for the energy companies. Their costs have not increased. The price hike is caused purely by competition from Russia being restricted by the war. This is war profiteering.

www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/09/caught-in-a-cycle-of-despair-and-exploitation/

I do not agree that we are doing the wrong thing re. Ukraine - but I agree the energy companies are profiteering!

I saw this today...see pic below....and I am angry that we are in the position where national assets have been sold for profit and we have been sold down the river to protect shareholders and big business.

I think everyone should get a basic level of energy at a reasonable price and if people use more than that then they do have to pay a premium rate -with an extra allowance for people in certain categories eg with health or mobility conditions, the elderly, and young children.

Irrelevant. It's to highlight a trend that won't be changing and to point out that we have not been, nor are we presently, self sufficient for a long time.

We still rely on half of our gas being imported. The ramping up is only offsetting recent declines, but those were the only significant and affordable discoveries to date worth looking into. Anything else is either too small or too costly for the complexity to look into with current prices. The data for new wells being drilled indicates more horizontals, which have large initial outputs followed by accelerated (in some cases, massively) declines. The US shale patch matches this profile with fields producing well for a couple years on average, then declining 90% in output and staying at that level for several more years.

There is no more cheap gas. New discoveries are not going to be cost competitive to prices pre-2022. Data is from UK Oil & Gas Authority collated by George Kaplan.

Tory house magazine the Spectator leading with an article calling it madness. On that, I am in agreement.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-madness-of-truss-s-energy-price-cap

While Boris Johnson used his farewell speech to praise the ‘vital symmetry between government action and free market capitalist private sector enterprise’, the formerly free market Liz Truss was busy briefing out price caps on energy.

There are only three possible explanations for this sudden change of heart: No. 10 is haunted by the malign ghost of Clement Attlee, the building is riddled with lead piping, or the electoral incentives facing the Conservative party are so perverse that when push comes to shove, even free marketeers are willing to abandon the free market in the race to expropriate from the young to pay for the old.

.............

The Tory vote is old. Pensioners don’t work and don’t pay much in taxes. They certainly don’t benefit from investments that pay off 20 years down the line. They’re very happy to rack up massive bills in the present day and pass them off to their grandchildren. And they vote in massive numbers.

This gives Conservative politicians strong incentives to find ways to take from the young and the future to give to the old and the present-day. It is toxic in the long term – we have a dysfunctional housing market, twisted to prop up pensioner assets, and high taxes to fund pensioner healthcare and pensions that are destroying family formation and living standards among young people. This is the only way the current Conservative party can see itself clinging on to power. Changing the prime minister isn’t enough to change that.

Money printer go BRRRRRRRRR

Can go kick kick kick

Pound go kersplat-splat-bang

I don't agree at all with your drift, OP. I don't know where you're coming from: e.g., perhaps, paying £50 per week for gas in winter, and with an amazing draught-free, insulated house - and feeling great in the winter months, but many people would struggle even to find £20 per week, during the winter months.
Some posters have said, on this forum, that they are on a very tight budget. The price rise will really hit them. I met an acquaintance I know, last month, who had no gas or elec at all at home - I gave her £50.

I find, during cold months, that when that has goes off for six hours, I am absolutely freezing, and it doesn't seem as though the heat which was being generated has been stored. Even with jumpers on, the air feels unhealthy. . It just goes to aching bones- freezing....and the hot water bottle seems to cool down again, very rapidly.

Some people will struggle. Some people really feel the cold.
As far as I'm aware, our ancestors would light hearth fires; there would be some braziers in the street; people helped out others; poor people shared houses. You could burn anything, and nobody would complain - hardly. Few of these Victorian remedies exist, for many people; people will just be too cold to think, won't get their washed clothes dry, and will suffer and get ill.

l agree with some of that. But it’s not only the old, or low income families that are being hit. If the squeezed middle aren’t helped then they have no spare money to spend in the economy. And then the economy collapses.

Surprisingly, the most accurate analysis I've seen all day.

We don't ALL need to, some of us already don't use much!
I use 2000kwh electric a year and 6000kwh gas
There is nothing I can cut back any more. Everything in the house is energy saving, I don't have a dryer, I don't leave lights on, and for some of winter I'm cold because I don't want to put the heating on due to cost. It's never on over 21c and always off at night

it is still going up in price
people will still try and cut down.

It’s not just spending it’s cost if supply that will hit small businesses in particular

I agree it’s hard to see the money printer roll and I have thought that for a while, but this is a huge issue and I’d say even more difficult than Covid (where we did have options just chose badly)

I'll be so pissed off this winter if I walk by a massive shop with its doors wide open and warm air pumping out into the street, as has been the norm for several decades.
It's our taxes paying for it all.

In France, they started fining shops for doing that in summer with A/C.

and the lights
do they need to be on in empty shops?

Ditto.
I can
“Just” survive at the moment.
Live in an old house and they just are draughty.
It is very depressing.
Profits for gas and electric producers are grotesque at the moment.