Energy folly

It’s hard to imagine a worse government than the UK’S. Crumbling public services, soaring interest rates, a new round of austerity, rising poverty, record inflation, fuel and food insecurity, a disastrous Brexit, falling life expectancy…

This staggering incompetence is most evident in the Tory destruction of the UK energy sector. Selling off a nation’s energy assets to private corporations who don’t care about long-term stability or energy security is criminal. Every citizen is being held hostage by private energy company profiteering. This winter, millions will be cold, hungry and thousands will die.

Six companies control over three-quarters of the UK household energy market. Three are controlled from France (EDF), Germany (EON, npower) and Spain (Scottishpower). Over the last decade, these six companies have paid £23 billion in dividends. Billions of pounds have gone abroad that would have stayed here had these companies remained in public ownership.

Ofgem’s weak regulation has encouraged profiteering and underinvestment. As a result, the UK has insufficient electricity generation capacity and must rely on imports, making it hugely vulnerable to price shocks.

It’s insane that energy-rich Scotland is paying some of the highest electricity prices in the world. Donald Dewar foresaw the disastrous consequences of privatising Scotland’s electricity industry: “Privatisation of electricity is no more than asset-stripping. The (UK) Government are living like spendthrifts, selling the future to finance today’s expenditure.”

The UK is a political, not a territorial union. Westminster has plundered resources belonging to the Scottish people who should be warm, well-fed and secure. The fact they aren’t is why this Union must end.

LEAH GUNN BARRETT

Edinburgh