Greens in Stoke-on-Trent have given their support to a call for the big five energy companies to be brought into public ownership to stabilize bills and protect consumers.
The Green Party are also calling for the energy price cap to be returned to where it was in October 2021 because current prices are unaffordable and for more to be done to insulate the UK’s draughty housing stock to save energy.In the longer term they want to see the energy market reformed to encourage the participation of a more diverse range of providers and a greater role for renewables.
In April this year, just as energy prices were starting to rise to unaffordable levels 10 wards in Stoke-on-Trent, including Abbey Hulton, Shelton, and Joiner’s Square, and Cobridge and Central Forest were identified as having a higher-than-average number of children living in poverty.
A report published by Staffordshire University and Citizens Advice Staffordshire North and Stoke-on-Trent in June 2021 showed that more than 90,000 people in the city were struggling to make ends meet.
Hunger was also identified as a major issue with the city’s Food Bank reporting having given out 14,000 food parcels in the previous year (2020), 1,500 of those went to people who had never needed food aid before.
A spokesperson for North Staffs Green Party said, “Anxiety levels are rising across Stoke-on-Trent, often among people who were struggling before the cost-of-living crisis began to bite”.
The Spokesperson went on to say, “Urgent action is needed of the sort that can only be taken at government level to fix energy prices at an affordable level, insulate people’s homes and fix the dysfunctional energy market”.
Green Party co-leader Carla Denya said,“Everyone needs energy, for basic needs like cooking and keeping warm”, the climate crisis, she added, means we need to “improve energy efficiency” as a matter of priority.
This, Ms Denya said, will be done through taking the big energy companies into public ownership, saving customers £2000 on their bills and an “ambitious national home insulation scheme, this will help bring down energy use across the country.”
The TUC estimate it will cost £2.8 billion to bring the big five energy companies into public ownership, around what it cost to deal with the collapse of several energy suppliers last Autumn .
Fixing the energy cap where it was last October will, the Green Party calculates, cost £37billion, this could largely be paid for by closing loopholes in the government’s ‘windfall tax and other tax measures’.
Carla Denya said, “Bringing the big five energy retail companies into public ownership, setting the price of energy at an affordable level and absorbing global price rises, would make sure everybody gets through this cost-of-living crisis”, and that doing so would mean an “essential public service” would be run “in the public interest, not in the interest of profit making”.
This, Ms Denya said, will be done through taking the big energy companies into public ownership, saving customers £2000 on their bills and an “ambitious national home insulation scheme, this will help bring down energy use across the country.”
The TUC estimate it will cost £2.8 billion to bring the big five energy companies into public ownership, around what it cost to deal with the collapse of several energy suppliers last Autumn .
Fixing the energy cap where it was last October will, the Green Party calculates, cost £37billion, this could largely be paid for by closing loopholes in the government’s ‘windfall tax and other tax measures’.
Carla Denya said, “Bringing the big five energy retail companies into public ownership, setting the price of energy at an affordable level and absorbing global price rises, would make sure everybody gets through this cost-of-living crisis”, and that doing so would mean an “essential public service” would be run “in the public interest, not in the interest of profit making”.