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| Big Six energy firm bosses branded cowards by MPs and told: Nobody trusts you |
The company executives blamed rising wholesale costs, distribution fees and green levies for their outrageous hikes.
But Labour’s John Robertson told them nobody would swallow that and asked them angrily: “Do you understand that the people in this country do not trust you?”
And furious colleague Ian Lavery reminded them of research, highlighted by the Mirror, showing their rises will kill thousands of the elderly this winter.
But it was another energy boss who really had them squirming.
Stephen Fitzpatrick, managing director of Ovo Energy, a small independent company, told MPs wholesale prices paid by him were actually falling.
“I can’t explain any of these price rises,” he said. “I have been somewhat confused by looking at the explanations for the price rises we’ve seen.”
Appearing alongside his much larger rivals at the Commons Energy select committee Mr Fitzpatrick accused the Big Six of ripping off loyal customers by putting them on higher tariffs and making them pay more of the green levies.
The Ovo boss said consumers who want to defect to him from firms like British Gas are immediately offered much cheaper rates to switch back.
He told the committee: “British Gas seems to be the most active with a dedicated win back team whose sole job it is to call people up and say ‘oh, there’s been a terrible mistake, we have been overcharging you and now we can cut your bill’.
“When this kind of behaviour is allowed to go unchallenged you will never get effective competition.” He also suggested firms which generate power as well as supplying homes are fleecing customers by selling it to themselves at a vastly inflated price before flogging it on. That was furiously denied by the execs with a blizzard of statistics.
But Mr Fitzpatrick told the MPs they would never find “where the money has gone” because the Big Six were among the “best filibusterers in the business”.
The firms were summoned before Parliament after four of the Big Six – npower, British Gas, Scottish Power and SSE – announced huge price rises
averaging 9.1% The remaining two, EDF and E.ON, refused to rule out rises this winter.
When asked by Mr Robertson how they would win customers’ trust back, William Morris, of SSE, said: “That is a really important question and I completely agree. But this British company, and their passion for doing the right thing is second to none.”
He also answered Mr Lavery’s charge that “there is the potential for 24,000 people to die because of the hikes of the energy prices by your companies”.
Complacent Mr Morris whose company has hiked prices by 8.2%, declared: “Fuel poverty worries me profoundly. There is nobody actually who should be in that position.”
The shameless executives defended their fatcat pay and bonuses as Labour MP Albert Owen pointed out the average British Gas bill has shot up 38% over last five years and at the same time the chief executive’s pay is up 36%.
But Ian Peters, managing director of the energy giant, brushed off the criticism insisting pay and bonuses were set by an independent committee. All the power chiefs insisted the best way to cut bills was to take off green levies and put them on general taxation instead, as proposed by David Cameron.
Tony Cocker, of E.ON, claimed the charges that total more than £100 amount to a “stealth tax”.
But Mr Lavery said the Big Six were ducking the real issue of making vast profits while struggling customers cannot afford to heat their homes.
He claimed that British Gas made more than £1billion, EDF £972million, E.ON £367million, npower £326million, Scottish Power £269million and SSE £780million.
Mr Morris hit back claiming that without the vast profits, the Big Six can’t operate their companies.
But Labour left-winger Mr Lavery said he and his friends were just making the case for putting the energy firms back into public ownership.
Even former Tory Cabinet minister Peter Lilley demanded to know why the companies should not be broken up into generators and retailers.
E.ON’s Tony Cocker called for a Competition Commission probe saying it would prove claims energy customers are being ripped off are wrong.
That was rejected by Labour leader Ed Miliband, who has plunged the industry and Government into panic by promising to fix prices for two years while the energy market is reformed.
Mr Miliband accused the Big Six of offering up a “list of excuses” at the hearing and insisted that “nothing less than a price freeze” will do.
He said: “What we’ve heard today was a list of excuses from energy companies. We don’t need more excuses, more reviews, what we need is action.”
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