renationalisation of energy?

[Passenger69]

Would you like to see the renationalisation of energy. We are in a crisis but all I see is a tinkering around the edges.....all I hear from Labour is a windfall tax and cutting vat ....a "refund" of 150 from the tories....

I would like to see energy renationalised with proper long term cross party strategy to protect people who need it and include a workable strategy for green energy.

AIBU?

I wish I had that answer @DdraigGoch I'd be shouting from the rooftops!
I actually work in a dark, murky, almost obsolete corner of the public sector but we are tightly managed with a small CoC and don't replace when people leave.
I think because we are winding down as tech becomes the sensible option we haven't suffered from management bloat or inefficiency.
I wonder why we overlook the failings of public sector though and worry about solution always being privatise.
I see the U.S. and wonder why we aren't put off by the rush to more privatisation.

Have Labour actually said how they'd distribute this "windfall" or is it just the usual "nasty big company/tax the rich" rhetoric to show they're so the party of the poor people?

How would nationalisation work? Would we also buy out OPEC to stop them controlling the price of oil? How would the government take ownership of these companies? Take over? Compulsory purchase? And where the hell is that money coming from?

It's basically a massive non starter.

I work on the railways. Under BR the railways were supposedly nationalised, but in practice the Treasury just handed over its annual grant and left BR's managers to get on with it. By the late '80s/early '90s there were some effective managers about who really did try to run it as a business and encourage growth in demand.

Then it was privatised. In theory. In practice the government started meddling in a way that they never had done under BR. Chris Green (an ex-BR manager) submitted a request to the Strategic Rail Authority to expand the order for new trains on Virgin Cross Country and was told "no", hence why overcrowding is awful on that route even to this day, with prices hiked on the orders of the government to try and keep a lid on demand.

First Great Western and GNER recognised that there would be a need to replace the 1970s HST fleet. They got together with Siemens and created a design for a replacement. The Department for Transport decided that such a project was too big for the private sector and took it over, eventually awarding contracts to Hitachi at exorbitant sums for trains which would be delivered years after the original plan would have been completed. Hitachi laugh all the way to the bank every time a contract variation is needed, the DfT has no scope for redress, thanks to the incompetent idiot in the Civil Service who wrote the original contracts.

It has got worse since covid, with every expense of over £500 having to be submitted to the DfT for approval, costing far more than that £500 in management time as the DfT seem to want a new format for the spreadsheets each week. Meanwhile trains end up parked in sidings awaiting cost approval for a new motor for the disabled toilet door.

Sir Humphrey would have been proud of the mess.

I feel that pain.
Our dept sometimes has to work with Capita and G4S if people knew how inept and often dangerous they were they'd be shocked. I honestly feel sick sometimes if they're involved.
They're very cheap though.

ResentfulLemon · 18/05/2022 14:58
DdraigGoch
MayorDusty
Why is Private sector always the answer instead of demanding efficiency in public sector?
Instead of dismissing nationalisation because we're looking at bad application shouldn't part of the solution be how to do public better?
Well sort out the existing public sector to show how it could run things well before trying to take on something new.
Couldn't agree more!

Just one example of a competent and efficient government run essential service would be a great start.

But that is a bollocks argument that goes both ways. Give just one example of a private utility company that is in the best interest of the public. Polar views don’t work.

Name one way to make energy less efficient:

Instead of dismissing nationalisation because we're looking at bad application shouldn't part of the solution be how to do public better?

That's an excellent idea in theory, but AFAIK nobody's ever found a way of doing it ... which is at least part of the reason utilities were privatised in the first place

Privatisation producing competitive prices for consumers only works if the goods and services being provided are non-essential. If the good and services provided are essential then the private companies act like cartels, raising their prices together and knowing they are guaranteed to make a profit because the consumer has no alternative but to go somewhere. Can you imagine how much private health companies and insurers would hike their prices if the NHS didn't exist as an alternative?

Utilities need to be renationalised and run on a not-for-profit basis. 'Efficiency' when it comes to private companies mainly translates as rubbish wages and precarious employment. Secure, decently paid jobs in an essential sector would actually be good for the economy. We're currently seeing utility companies making record profits while hiking their prices, providing a poor service, employing people with crappy pay and conditions but simultaneously claiming that price rises are inevitable and completely beyond their control. It's a total lie.

Tory bots. Inflation is running at 9.1%.
Tell me how great this government is at economics.

I've found Octopus to be quite good, actually.

Actually none of the distributors are that bad, they're not the ones creaming off the profits at the moment - that would be the oil giants like Shell. Nationalising the UK suppliers won't make one bit of difference to that, you'd still have to buy gas at the market rate, a rate which has risen mainly due to the scramble to wean Europe off of Russian fossil fuels.

When wholesale prices rose, many of the smaller energy suppliers went bust. They'd driven margins so tight that there was no room for price rises. They hadn't even hedged their prices like the larger suppliers had, to insure against the wholesale price changing.

Again, the money is being made by the multinationals responsible for drilling for these fossil fuels in the first place. Blowing a load of money nationalising Scottish Power, EDF et al won't make the slightest difference.

If even Labour haven't suggested nationalisation, that tells you that it's a really daft idea.

Plenty of other countries have decent state run infrastructure, in fact plenty also operate here and we don't even think about it. If people can't switch suppliers, can't change their tariffs then yes I think they should be nationalised. As a customer never been so pissed off to be bound to my current and increasingly annoying energy provider spamming me all the time and putting my bills up constantly despite me being hundreds of pounds in credit.

Don't tell Sid.