Too little help for
families and too much profit for oil and gas giants, says
TUC
Commenting on the proposals announced by the government today to
support households and businesses with energy bills, TUC General
Secretary Frances O’Grady said:
“Freezing energy bills this autumn is essential for families and
to protect jobs and businesses.
“But the Prime Minister is making the wrong people pay. She
should have imposed a much larger windfall tax on profiteering
oil and gas giants. And she should have required all firms
getting help with energy bills to commit to no lay-offs for the
lifetime of the help, to protect livelihoods.
“And it’s not just energy bills soaring - so she needs to do more
to help families get through the winter. That means a real plan
to get wages rising, a big boost to universal credit, child
benefit and pensions, and a massive rollout of home improvements
to cut bills. And it’s time to bring energy retail into public
ownership to make sure this crisis never happens again.”
The TUC says that the government should set out a programme to
make UK living standards more resilient and the UK economy more
resistant to a future crisis. This should include:
-
Increase the windfall tax to a fairer level
relative to the excess profits oil and gas firms are making.
-
Rapid rollout of home energy efficiency and taking the
energy retail companies into public ownership –
including a new approach to energy pricing with a free band of
energy to cover basic lighting, heating, hot water and cooking.
-
A plan to get pay rising for all workers –
including stronger pay bargaining rights so that working people
and their unions can make fair pay agreements across whole
industries.
-
Increase the minimum wage to £15 an hour as soon as
possible – by returning the UK to normal wage growth
and having a more ambitious minimum wage target.
-
Social security that prevents poverty -
universal credit and benefits should be raised to 80 percent of
the national living wage, along with a significant boost to
support for families with children.
Any energy
review must not get in the way of getting started on Sizewell
C
Responding to the Prime Minister’s announcement of two
energy reviews in Parliament this morning, Prospect trade union’s
Senior Deputy General Secretary Sue Ferns said:
“The public will not forgive any further dither and delay by
ministers on taking the important investment decisions needed to
secure our long-term energy security.
“Speaking outside Number 10, the Prime Minister promised to get
‘spades in the ground’. She must make clear that the future of
the Sizewell C project will not be delayed by a single day as a
result of the reviews into energy regulation and net zero.
“The project is ready to go as soon as the government grants its
investment decision.
“Building the Sizewell C nuclear power station will deliver
secure, clean electricity and good jobs for decades to come as
part of a just transition to net zero.”
ASCL responds to Prime
Minister's announcement on energy bills
Commenting on the Prime Minister’s announcement about measures to
limit energy bill rises, Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the
Association of School and College Leaders, said:
“We are pleased that the government is extending the energy price
guarantee to schools and colleges. The financial pressure they
face as a result of soaring energy costs is eye-watering and
unsustainable, and this intervention is desperately needed.
However, we are concerned that the Prime Minister’s announcement
seems to indicate that this guarantee will last for only six
months and we will be seeking clarification about what happens
beyond then, as well as more detail about exactly how the
guarantee will work. There is absolutely no way that schools and
colleges can bear unrestrained energy cost increases at any point
without this impacting on educational provision. We are also
pleased that there is protection for households which we hope
will reduce the risk of an increase in the very high rate of
child poverty which already exists in the UK. From an educational
perspective, children who are cold and hungry are not in a fit
state to learn. However, we need to understand the extent to
which the guarantee will protect the most vulnerable families.
“It is also important to understand that rising energy costs are
only one element of the immense pressure on school and college
budgets. They are also facing the cost of national pay awards for
their staff – which are fully deserved, and indeed inadequate in
the context of inflation, but for which there is no extra funding
from the government to pay these awards. The government believes
this is ‘broadly affordable’ on the basis of the money invested
into education in last year’s spending review but it certainly
does not feel like that in many schools and colleges, and comes
against the background of a decade-long funding squeeze. It is an
atrocious record from a government that has simply not
prioritised education and the future of children and young people
as it should have done, and it must remedy this dire situation
urgently.”
