Babelfish - Newspaper - Page 5
Babelfish BREAKING THE LINK
keys to change
ARM
RTH SEA
¡
lion off our
billion for
olds. That’s
n impacts of
er economy.
ntage points
% lower.
3
CONTROL THE
MONOPOLIES
¡
£ ¤
Growth would have been 0.5 percent points
higher.
GDP would have been 1.1% higher by 2025 — a
£36 billion boost to the economy.
And we’d all have nearly 300 quid more in our
pockets, each year till 2025.
This is a new perspective. Our dysfunctional energy
market doesn’t just make us pay more for our energy
than we need to, it drives in昀氀ation up, the cost of
borrowing up, pay bargaining and the cost of doing
business up – our entire cost of living – up. And it
drives poverty up – breaking the link could have
lifted one million Britons out of poverty in 2023.
This is great economic and social harm – our lives
made harder than they need to be, our economy
weaker. If you look at global gas prices on a graph
over time, it has the shape of a rollercoaster. We
can jump off this rollercoaster and protect ourselves
from energy price volatility, permanently - if we
break this senseless link.
MISSION TO EASE
COST OF LIVING
BY LUKE MURPHY
MP FOR BASINGSTOKE and FOUNDER OF THE LIVING
STANDARDS COALITION
ENERGY bills must be brought down. The cost of living is the
issue raised more than any other, more than the NHS, crime,
or migration. It should be no surprise. By October 2024,
disposable incomes were no higher than at the end of 2019.
The failure of the Conservative government to get a grip on this
crisis cost the country half a decade of lost living standards.
With millions still feeling the strain of that toxic legacy,
compounded by global instability, easing the cost of living for
low and middle income households must be a defining
mission of this Labour government.
We have already taken important steps to secure growth,
raise incomes, and reduce costs, from increasing the National
Minimum Wage to capping bus fares and expanding free
childcare. But we must go further.
A bold, long-term living standards strategy must sit at the
heart of our plan for growth. That means examining every
system, from energy and housing to childcare, food, and water,
to ensure each delivers genuine value for money for taxpayers
and billpayers alike. The evidence shows this is not the case in
our energy system. Since 2021, energy network companies
have made around £4 billion in excess profits, paid for by our
constituents through their bills. These profits are not tied to
performance or consumer benefit, but to higher-thanexpected inflation, allowing companies to recover borrowing
costs far above their real costs. Worse still, these windfalls are
expected to continue.
We also continue to let the price of gas dictate the price of
other energy sources. This means we remain hostage to
volatile fossil fuel prices and the whims of foreign dictators.
And then there are the regressive charges on energy bills,
from VAT to policy levies. The approach of the Conservatives
and Reform would take Britain backwards. They want to
reverse this government’s transition to a cleaner, cheaper, and
more secure energy system. We must stay the course on clean
power. But as part of our broader mission to raise living
standards, we must also bring down energy bills for good.
¥ Rees-Mogg in the Commons
Budget Day 2025
5
