The PM and the Energy Companies : Thu Oct 18, 2012 11:44 am  

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19986929 Should we really expect our Prime Minister to speak off the cuff and not from a prepared text ? When he threw in the line at PMQ's "I can announce... that we will be legislating so that energy companies have to give the lowest tariff to their customers, something that Labour didn't do in 13 years, even though the leader of the Labour Party could have done because he had the job." did he really mean that, did he think that he really meant that, or did he really mean to say that they are looking at making the Energy company's own voluntary code of conduct in which they should inform customers of their cheapest tarrif once a year, law, which is not the same as forcing them to always charge the lowest rate. It wouldn't be quite so bad if it didn't throw the whole party ethos of private competition driving the economy into chaos, for if you force all of the engergy providers to always charge the cheapest tarrif available then you effectively take away any vestige of competition between them, they'll just all settle on the same rate - a fact which consumer groups have been clamouring to get onto the broadcast media to point out these last 24 hours. Later on in the day he sent an underling, a random pleb, into the Commons to explain that they weren't quite sure how it would all work just yet etc etc etc, but its the latest example of our PM opening his mouth under times of stress and saying anything to score imaginary points in the game of "debate" that they all hold so dear. I couldn't give a flying one about who sounds best in parliament or who can "win" an argument (you never win an argument, especially when you don't need to, ie you have a majority and you force them to agree with you anyway), but I would rather like someone at the helm who doesn't seem to be making it up as he goes along, literally from one minute to the next.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19986929 Should we really expect our Prime Minister to speak off the cuff and not from a prepared text ? When he threw in the line at PMQ's "I can announce... that we will be legislating so that energy companies have to give the lowest tariff to their customers, something that Labour didn't do in 13 years, even though the leader of the Labour Party could have done because he had the job." did he really mean that, did he think that he really meant that, or did he really mean to say that they are looking at making the Energy company's own voluntary code of conduct in which they should inform customers of their cheapest tarrif once a year, law, which is not the same as forcing them to always charge the lowest rate. It wouldn't be quite so bad if it didn't throw the whole party ethos of private competition driving the economy into chaos, for if you force all of the engergy providers to always charge the cheapest tarrif available then you effectively take away any vestige of competition between them, they'll just all settle on the same rate - a fact which consumer groups have been clamouring to get onto the broadcast media to point out these last 24 hours. Later on in the day he sent an underling, a random pleb, into the Commons to explain that they weren't quite sure how it would all work just yet etc etc etc, but its the latest example of our PM opening his mouth under times of stress and saying anything to score imaginary points in the game of "debate" that they all hold so dear. I couldn't give a flying one about who sounds best in parliament or who can "win" an argument (you never win an argument, especially when you don't need to, ie you have a majority and you force them to agree with you anyway), but I would rather like someone at the helm who doesn't seem to be making it up as he goes along, literally from one minute to the next.

[John_D]

Re: The PM and the Energy Companies : Thu Oct 18, 2012 12:42 pm  

Why do there exist tariffs above the lowest? That's the real question. Who could possibly benefit from those?

Re: The PM and the Energy Companies : Thu Oct 18, 2012 12:44 pm  

Well I think it's a great idea. In fact, it should be expanded and apply across the board, every trader should be compelled by law to sell me whatever I want to buy at the cheapest possible price, in the case of most goods, that's 1p above cost, but for stuff like petrol it could even be say 0.09p a litre. The man's a bloody genius, I tell ya.

Re: The PM and the Energy Companies : Thu Oct 18, 2012 12:55 pm  

It's a quick way of getting rid of unstransparent tariffs though. Each company will logically go back to a single tariff. Provided that cartel can be avoided (unlikely) and people have choice of supplier it might just drive prices down. In reality, it won't though as there is no real competition and its an artificial market.

Re: The PM and the Energy Companies : Thu Oct 18, 2012 1:19 pm  

John_D wrote:

Why do there exist tariffs above the lowest? That's the real question. Who could possibly benefit from those?

Well, "lowest" is different according to your circumstances, and there's hardly anything wrong with a company offering additional discount for a longer term commitment / charging a premium for a lack of term commitment.

Re: The PM and the Energy Companies : Thu Oct 18, 2012 1:33 pm  

Dally wrote:

It's a quick way of getting rid of unstransparent tariffs though. Each company will logically go back to a single tariff. Provided that cartel can be avoided (unlikely) and people have choice of supplier it might just drive prices down. In reality, it won't though as there is no real competition and its an artificial market.

Not really, until all tariffs are made simpler and easier to compare then people will still be put off from switching. The threat of customers leaving to go to a competitor is the best way to lower prices or improve service.
Instead of forcing companies to put people on their lowest tariff, I'd restrict the number of tariffs a company can offer and tightly control/simplify the tariffs.
Do away with 2 tier pricing (or at least make tier 1 the same price and consumption across all companies).
Do away with monthly/yearly/leaving fees or standardise them.
Give consumers more information about their usage ie what they use in summer, what they use in winter, and an average over the whole year.

Then I think it gets much easier for people to compare companies and tariffs. Right now, it's an absolute nightmare and takes hours to compare just a few.

Re: The PM and the Energy Companies : Thu Oct 18, 2012 2:54 pm  

What? I change gas and/or electricity supplier regularly. It takes literally minutes on any one of the comparison websites, and instantly see exactly how much savings, to the penny, you would be able to make with any of the energy companies, listed in order.

These sites know all the prices and all the tariffs, and you have absolutely no need at all to look anything up yourself.

In most cases there's a click through to apply to change suppliers, and then it's all taken care of for you. It's pretty much the easiest thing in the world. All you need to is remember to cancel your old DD at the relevant moment so the other buggers can't continue to rob your account and job done.

We've just chnaged gas supplier to NPower, who are of course famously about to put their prices up. But as i am a new customer I am getting a fixed lower price till January 2014, and this is unaffected by the price rise.

Which kind of neatly moves on to the other point - it is only because NPower are offering me as a new customer the best deal, that they are getting my business. If that isn't empowering the consumer, and a good reason for them to offer such deals, what is? Pretty much all companies will offer new customers deals to secure new business. What is wrong with that?

Re: The PM and the Energy Companies : Thu Oct 18, 2012 4:58 pm  

His plan, like most of his, is complete nonsense.....Surely, if everybody has to get the lowest tariff, then that will just drive up that 'lowest' tariff, because the energy companies will simply offer an average price??....

His plan actually flies in the face of the classic Conservative thinking of a free market and if put into practice then you may as well put the energy market back into the hands of the state?

Re: The PM and the Energy Companies : Thu Oct 18, 2012 5:42 pm  

Dita's Slot Meter wrote:

His plan, like most of his, is complete nonsense.....Surely, if everybody has to get the lowest tariff, then that will just drive up that 'lowest' tariff, because the energy companies will simply offer an average price??....

His plan actually flies in the face of the classic Conservative thinking of a free market and if put into practice then you may as well put the energy market back into the hands of the state?

No, because "lowest tariff" doesn't mean "lowest tariff across all suppliers" it means the lowest tariff that supplier has.
What it means is that if for example you signed up to an off-peak usage plan that for example had higher rates for peak times and lower for off-peak, but actually used lots of peak power and little off-peak power and would have paid less on a different pricing structure, you should be put onto that plan by the power company.
Tariffs are still going to be different between suppliers, and within a single suppliers different tariffs will be different for different people.

Re: The PM and the Energy Companies : Thu Oct 18, 2012 5:48 pm  

The energy companies can easily cope with tinkering like this.
The total cost for the energy supplied will be no less than before.
I am pretty sure the Conservatives know that and just want to appear to be doing something about it, when in truth this in no way addresses relentless, above index, price rises.
Lip service as usual.