Labour: Energy firms must help customers get through winter
The shadow chief secretary to the Treasury has called on energy companies "who have been making very large profits" to do "everything they can" to help their customers get through the winter. Darren Jones adds more investment needs to be made in UK-based renewable energy and that insulating homes should be made cheaper and easier for households. Ofgem's energy price cap takes effect this weekend amid concerns households could still end up paying around 13% more than last winter. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
Transcript
00:00 So it's right that Ofgem is reducing the price that we pay for our gas in line with the price that the energy companies pay for it.
00:07 But prices are still higher than they were. And there's a number of things that really needs to happen.
00:13 One, as a country, we need to be investing much more in renewable energy based here in the UK, because it's international gas prices that have led to higher bills.
00:22 The Conservatives have been arguing again about onshore wind turbines.
00:25 They completely failed to do any deals on offshore wind recently, and that has to change.
00:30 And the second thing is we need to make it easier and cheaper for people to do the small things in their homes just to insulate their homes better,
00:36 so that when they put the heating on, the heat stays in the house.
00:40 Labour's been calling for a national insulation programme where we help people do that.
00:45 But the Conservatives have been very reluctant to bring it forward.
00:48 And until we get those things right, you're not going to see long term reductions in people's energy bills.
00:53 Well, we want to see the price of wholesale gas flow through to customers as quickly as possible.
00:58 That's why Ofgem has improved the what's called the price cap period so that it's now every couple of months.
01:05 And energy companies have been making very large profits, need to be doing everything they can to help their customers.
01:10 So if customers are unable to pay the bills or they're in a vulnerable position, people should be talking to their energy companies in the first instance.
01:17 And we expect energy companies to help those customers get through the winter.
01:21 Well, people who have been paying more and more in tax are rightly going to want to know what on earth are the Conservatives doing with our money?
01:28 Because when you look around the country at the economy, at our public services, what we're seeing is an economy that is broken and public services that are not delivering.
01:36 So an incoming Labour government will want to do two things. The first thing is we have to get the economy growing.
01:42 That means you help businesses to sell more things and make more profits.
01:46 And we want to help workers have better pay because the more you're paid and the more profits you make, the more money comes into the government for public services.
01:53 And the second thing is the public services themselves. We need to think very deeply about how we modernise and reform public services so that we can get better outcomes for people at lower costs in the longer term.
02:05 Well, I mean, we've said that we're not going to be increasing taxes on working people.
02:11 We've said that we're not going to be introducing any new kind of wealth tax at the next election.
02:16 And we recognise that taxes are very high now compared to previous years.
02:21 And we will inherit that status quo on coming into government.
02:24 But that's why our focus is absolutely on how you grow the economy as quickly as possible, because that is the long term solution to being able to reduce taxes in the medium to long term.