To be completely appalled

[MansfieldLark]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-gas-profits-centrica-energy-bills-b2382758.html

Its disgusting, so many people suffered over the winter for utility companies to make obscene profits.

Sad but true.

There really should be an automatic windfall tax on all utility companies when profit levels are this high.

It really is jaw droppingly obscene and I can't believe it's legal! All the while we were told the price hikes were because there was a fuel crisis due to the war in Ukraine, and now we know the truth. Pure profiteering by the utilities companies and the supermarkets (more than doubling their profit margins on petrol sales). Those supermarkets that make out they're doing so much to help struggling families have been acting like a Columbian cartel!

Utilities should be nationalised, and supermarkets need controls to prevent blatant profiteering.

EDF posted profits of £1.1 billion this year on the UK market - that's how the French do things. Their government owned utility company makes profits in other countries.

Basic services should be under public ownership. There should be no shareholders. So yes, all shareholders are bad in this case.

The pension funds can find something else to invest in.

@Begsthequestion look at the UK Listing Rules and the Corp Governance Code. Look at the lists of major shareholders all publicly listed companies are obliged to include on their website. Think about the market cap of most FTSEs and how likely it is for any one individual to be a major shareholder.... I think about 62% of the FTSE is in institutional investor hands. Or just keep up the parasite thing.

Do you understand how public ownership of resources works?

There should be no shareholders.

Are you talking about Centrica? They are the parent company of British Gas. Companies like Centrica with a production side have been making massive profits because of the high wholesale prices. However British Gas, the domestic retail arm has been in a very different position.

I’m not saying I feel sorry for poor British Gas that they weren’t making a big profit and only their parent company was. But the dialogue around this is often really confused so just trying to clarify a couple of points.

Cost of greed crisis.

Yet the same criminals who encourage, enable, and worship relentless profiteering will tell you it's poorly paid workers asking for meagre pay rises who are driving it.

This is the nonsense of Neoliberalism. 40'odd years of it in the UK, and there are still idiots who believe 'trickle-down' economics are a reality and eagerly vote for even more of it.

But the reality is there are shareholders at the moment and that's who you asked about and are calling parasites? BG hasn't been renationalised since the thread started!

If this is the level of discussion, I'm out!

We have been unable to afford diesel for our heating tank for the last two months.

In order to get hot water, we have to boil a kettle. Things like washes for the dc, is literally, boil the kettle, add cold water to a watering can, add the hot water and wash.

Where do you think Centrica's profits come from?

The article on the BBC suggests about £500m of this has come from changes to the price cap - i.e. from customers energy bills.

According to a quick Google, British Gas has "over 10m customers". For arguments sake let's use 10m.

£500m profit over 10m households for half the year. That's £50 profit per househould. Or under £10 / month.

I don't know about anyone else but my energy bill has gone up hundreds. Less than a tenner a month wouldn't touch the sides.

I'm not defending British Gas (their customer service is shite for one thing), and the £969m profit does make an attention grabbing headline, but when you consider what that's actually made up of its not very extreme.

And yes, if you have any sort of private pension you are almost certainly invested in this company.

*Basic services should be under public ownership. There should be no shareholders. So yes, all shareholders are bad in this case.

The pension funds can find something else to invest in.*

So would the government buy the shareholders out? How would we fund that?

Or would we just take it back with no payment? What would we do about all the people who can't afford food or heating because their pension was invested in public utilities?

Sorry it got too high level for your pedantry.

Have a great day.

Expropriation, yes.

Interesting that now you think of the people who can't afford to eat or heat...

Cos under communism everyone's fucked but they're equally funked so yay! 😀

Where do you think they come from….?

Primarily they have been coming from their production arm - North Sea has and oil.

Not their domestic supply arm (British Gas). At least not until more recently - now prices have changed and retailers are more profitable.

Producers are the ones that made the massive profits during the gas crisis.

Hmmm...

I didn't know that Britain was a communist country before public utilities were privatised in the 1980s.

Better update that history textbook I guess.

Utilities should be nationalised

You do realise that nationalising utilities places it firmly in the hands of the fuckwits that run HMRC, DVLA, Passport Office and other bloated, inefficient national services?

That would increase cost to customers, reduce investment in the future energy supply (has anyone bothered to read just how much money Centrica has committed to investment over the next 5 years?), reduce efficiency and frankly the government couldn't afford to do it. Because if you're nationalising supply, you also have to nationalise production. Can you see the Chinese and French happily handing over nuclear power stations without fuss?

Centrica is one of few UK based utility companies. There are far more French/German/Spanish owners across the board. Nationalising would mean fair compensation to the owners/shareholders or we'd be subject to international sanctions. Where are we getting the several billion to do this?

Making 2% profit over the last 3 years is not the crime of the century. This is a British firm that employs several thousand people in the UK, pays their entire tax bill, their employees pay their taxes, substantial reinvestment in the local communities through sponsorship, self funded the British Gas Energy Trust who will help anyone - not just British Gas customers.

Plus as other PPs have pointed out, there are an awful lot of people whose pension funds are held up by companies like Centrica. The UK would be much worse off if companies cannot make the profit they need to keep the lights on in 10 years time - focusing on it being a 'now' problem is a shortsighted typically government view, let's make the people content now - the future is someone else's problem. Thankfully industry makes far longer reaching plans and actually considers what's next.

If you read a need article or two on this, you will learn that the £1bn of British Gas profits contributes significantly to the £6.5bn of profit most recently reported by Centrica.

It’s profiteering. You’re right about one thing - it is appalling.

British Gas provide services for about 12,000,000 homes. The math says thats £6 a month per home. That's not a lot of price reduction to be had.

Tax the rich.

Redistribute the wealth.

Stop millions suffering hunger and poverty in the sixth richest country in the world.

@Begsthequestion

I'm concerned about anyone who can't afford to heat their homes or buy food but if the government seize privately owned assets then I think the repercussions of that would be significant and probably not as positive as you assume.