“Stand beside your oven to stay warm” say profiteering gas company as price hikes continue.
This week, we have seen gas companies continue to raise their prices, ripping off customers and pushing people further into fuel poverty. After raising its prices not once or twice, but three times in 2021, yesterday Firmus announced further price increases for towns and villages across the six counties. This 33.57% increase will affect around 59,000 households, who will be charged an additional £300 to their gas bill, bringing yearly bills to £1,300.
The constant price hikes brought forward by Firmus Energy are a worrying sign for working-class homes and families. The company’s latest price increase is the fourth since last Spring, and with the Fuel Poverty Coalition warning that already one in five families in the north of Ireland are living in fuel poverty, it is certain that more people will be left poorer and colder.
Firmus is not alone in its worsening of this financial burden. SSE Airtricity raised its gas prices twice in 2021, increasing the cost by 21.8% in October 2021, which added an extra £112 onto the household’s annual bill. In January 2020, SSE sold its company to OVO Energy, one of the largest British energy suppliers. A year after this sale, OVO were forced to apologise for sending out their customers a blog containing ‘energy saving tips’, so-called ‘advice’ which included telling people to cuddle their pets to stay warm. Other ‘advice’ included to eat a bowl of porridge to stay warm, wear an extra jumper in the house to stay warm, leave your oven on after you’ve finished cooking, as the ‘extra heat’ will help you stay warm.
What these words of ‘advice’ from one of the largest gas companies reveals, is that the people running these corporations are well aware that ordinary, working-class people cannot afford to heat their homes. This ‘advice’ is not just outdated, but offensive. People suffering in fuel poverty, or in any type of poverty at all, already know what they must do to stay warm. How to care for themselves and their families in the cold months, when the price of gas is increased and the bill can no longer be paid.
An ‘apology’ from OVO Energy came on 11 January 2022, the same month that the Utility Regulator warned of gas price increases of at least 30% in the coming weeks. These companies might be sorry for the PR disaster caused, but they are not sorry for the continued raising of gas prices. They are not sorry that working-class people are sinking deeper into fuel poverty, which jeopardises their health and their quality of living.
A real apology would be a freeze in gas prices, for the ongoing raising of costs to end. But as long as these companies continue to profit from the ever-increasing payments made by ordinary working people, this exploitation will not end. This morning, the regulator Ofgem announced a record energy bill increase of 54%, the steepest increase in heating costs ever recorded.
To be clear, OVO Energy Ltd posted increased revenues of £4.5 Billion in 2021 – that’s money straight out of your pocket and into theirs. Think about that as you follow their advice to stand beside your oven for the extra heat.
Such an inhumane system where a private company is allowed to profit from your need to heat your home should not be allowed to exist. Under a Socialist Republic utilities such as this would be brought into public ownership, to be treated as a service and not an enterprise for profit.
