The Price of Westminster Failure
Energy market intelligence analysts Cornwall Insight have warned that energy bills will not return to 2021 levels until around 2030 at the earliest.
While the Ofgem energy price cap has just been reduced slightly to £2,074 a year for the typical household from July, energy prices will still be around double what they were in 2021 (£1042) and they are expected to rise again in January.
In addition, the UK government has withdrawn the £400 energy bill rebate for households and household incomes are falling behind the UK’s soaring inflation, leaving families worse off than they were pre-pandemic.
Following the Ofgem announcement, Cornwall Insight warned “Despite the cap falling from the sky-high prices of the past two years, the figure remains over £1,000 per year more than the price cap levels seen prior to the pandemic… We do not currently expect bills to return to pre-2020 levels before the end of the decade at the earliest”.
Campaigners from the End Fuel Poverty Coalition also warned “People now face many more months with bills remaining stubbornly high. This will see them continue to use up their savings for everyday items, run up credit card bills, fall into debt with energy firms or turn to food banks as the cost of living crisis deepens”.
It is a tragedy that people in a country as energy-rich as Scotland are struggling to pay their bills or now simply cannot do so.
GRAEME
The UK Government has failed Scotland on this front as on so many others, from its refusal to reinvest the profits of our North Sea resources to its total mismanagement of the economy which has led to the extent of the cost-of-living crisis we now face.
But the people of Scotland do not need to accept this state of affairs.
We can reject both the Tories who have impoverished so many and a pro-Brexit Labour Party equally committed to decline, escape failing Westminster control and pursue a brighter future as an independent country.
