All households in England, Wales and Scotland will receive £400 in energy bill discounts from October, the government has announced.
The support will be issued in six instalments over six months to about 29m households.
At a time of supply shortage the idea is to subsidise demand.
Giving consumers money in a time of high inflation is never going to work out well, but it could be worse… It’s a fixed sum, so isn’t going to affect the marginal cost to consumers of a unit of energy: cutting 2p/unit off electricity would be a much worse idea.
In practice this will raise prices for commercial / industrial users. Destroying jobs to keep granny warm. Standard Tory policy of “protect the old at all costs”.
Andrew M,
To be fair, the grannies turn out and vote. The young people who complain about not having houses don’t.
All the political parties have the pension triple-lock as policy for this reason. Lib, Lab, Con, SNP.
Isn’t the real shortage just money?
What if you paid Putin to stop his war? And if you can’t, does that say a lot about the ineffectiveness of price signals and monetary incentives, two things near and dear to the hearts of market fundamentalists?
My top 2 policy wishes.
1. End the Net Zero by 2050 vanity project.
2. Get fracking big time.
Bonus wish: Cancel any journalist reporting any Climate prediction based on RCP8.5 – hold them responsible for their own due diligence.
Hi rsm/Violet Elizabeth Newmania. Back with your usual inanities?
rsm
Are you really Richard Burgon ?
rsm
Isn’t the real shortage just money?
So by that logic we just print a load more money and that resolves the issue?
What if you paid Putin to stop his war? And if you can’t, does that say a lot about the ineffectiveness of price signals and monetary incentives, two things near and dear to the hearts of market fundamentalists?
So we pay Putin to stop his invasion? And if we can’t (or presumably if we won’t) then it means price signals and monetary incentives are ineffective?
You have an interesting line of attack….
So we pay Putin to stop his invasion?
Danegeld anyone?
‘… will receive £400 in vote-for-us bribes.’
Politics and Government is best understood if it is realised every policy and action is aimed exclusively at serving the political interests of the ruling Party, irrespective it produces worst outcomes and costs to the citizenry.
This has become the norm because the citizenry let them, as long as they get free stuff and believe they can live off each other.
Okay, sure. Take the other tack and give the plebs nothing. What happens then? You can’t cut the old and disabled off because they can’t pay bills which are far beyond their ability to afford.
What ya gonna do? Take them to court and have them pay £1 a week, since that’s all they can afford? Repeat ad infinitum until the bills start coming down a year or years from now? That’s going to be fantastic news for the leftards at the BBC, pushing that right up to the election, when the usual Labour busted flush promises to get the money printing presses really running.
Personally, I would have preferred more targeted support to those whose low income means they genuinely cannot pay swinging rates for gas and electricity. Far better to do that than just doling out £400 to all and sundry.
@JohnB
Politics and Government is best understood if it is realised every policy and action is aimed exclusively at serving the political interests of the ruling Party, irrespective it produces worst outcomes and costs to the citizenry.
I’d amend that by saying “each individual politician & bureaucrat” (& each individual lobby group member & journalist for that matter). But you’re on the right track. There are no such things as political parties or governments. Only individuals. Diligently working to maximise what they see as their own personal advantage. So what one gets to see is the sum of all that.
Talking about £400, or who gets it, is an irrelevance. Imagine:
No dictated lockdown/mass over-reaction to the Chinky Flu: People mostly carried on (particularly young/working age), little in the way of economic downturns (if all countries were doing the same), no panicked money printing, no resulting current inflation.
No Net Zero shite policies: Plenty of energy, none of this supply side restriction exists.
The solution (and to most problems of this nature) is obvious, get rid of interfering socialist governments. Problem solved.
(Apologies for stating the obvious)
John Galt is correct imv.
Subsidise people not products.
Those who are not on low incomes can ruddy well save money by reducing their consumption. Heck, knock VAT up to 20% just to incentivise further. That’ll teach the energy companies if they are indeed profiteering.
It’s not Giving consumers money. It’s a credit on enegy bills. A tiny offset to the green tax subsidy debit on bills
There’s no energy shortage in UK, only a ban on using our own energy
WEFi Sunak and rest of greens need burnt in Drax
‘WEFi Sunak and rest of greens need burnt in Drax’
Thanks Pcar. Someone has finally developed the right policy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!