Energy Crisis: Should Britain Just Nationalise Energy?
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- Опубліковано 5 жов 2022
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With energy prices rising across the UK, many have discussed bringing energy back under public ownership. So in this video, we discuss how the British energy system works, a few potential ways it could be nationalised and whether that's likely to happen.
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I wish they would nationalize the energy grid and then power the whole of UK through the sheer power generated by Thatcher turning in her grave
Oh,you mean in the gender neutral bathroom that's also her grave?
Thanks now the coffee's all over the breakroom desk x3
“Old lady thatcher is producing power enough to light up the whole continent. Why didn’t we think of this sooner”
Gazes at the glowing extremely fast rotating coffin
@@user-is1lo9dx2i the Scottish bathroom?
@@jtgd EVERYONE'S bathroom,just wash your hand.
The shear amount of essential infrastructure that’s been privatized around the world is mind boggling.
I'm absolutely living for the fact that, a month after being in office, we already have enough issues with Liz Truss that there is a "Truss Issues" Podcast. The Queen did it right by bowing out so soon.
I have even Less Trust in her than I did Boris and I had pretty much none in him.....
"F-ck this sh-t, I'm out." HM ER II, probably
#1 they announced the pod cast when she won.
#2 most issues preceded her
#3 it does show TL;DR's bias doesn't it.
The Queen: *meets Liz Truss
The Queen: *dies of cringe
Not that i want anyone to die, but if i had to pick a liz, any liz it wouldn't have been the queen....
lets not forget anyone under 50 didnt vote for them to be sold off. yet we are the ones who end up paying for yet another disastrous idea.
Over 50's here did not either ,
So… do you want to vote on big issues like this every generation? Seems a bit much.
@@maxdavis7722 I mean, democratically speaking, this is why we have elections so frequently….unless you’d rather just have one leader with the mandate of their voters, forevermore?
decades later and we're still just trying to undo the damage, and now we're treated to watered-down-Thatcher still insisting it's gonna trickle down on us.
@@maxdavis7722 you think 50 years is too much?🤣🤣 can I just ask what age you plan on living too?🤣
In other words, the people want nationalization, while the politicians want to pay energy companies billions in borrowed money for slightly lowered prices.. Is the UK really a Democracy?
I think it has become a kleptocracy.
Is the UK really a Democracy?
_No, it isn't. Not for a long time._
It's *_supposed_* to a representative parliamentary democracy, but over successive decades the "winner takes all" FPTP electoral system resulted in a de facto 2-party state, where neither party properly represents the views of the majority of the electorate, who have no alternatives to vote for.
Basically the system was successfully gamed by the politicians and has been broken for some time, but by distracting the public (with entertainment and sports) and cleverly using the media to promote propaganda, the existing political elite ensures the status quo continues.
Noam Chomsky wrote about this, with reference to the US media and government, in his book "Manufacturing Consent" (1988), but it also applies to the UK.
"The people"?
Some people...
@@GonzoTehGreat New head of state, New prime minister, New government, New manifesto... in the space of two weeks... not one new election.
It shouldn't be a "MAYBE", it should be the norm...some services SHOULD just be nationalised. And private entities should stay out of these.
The biggest issue of the day is that we took energy production off the table.
If this is not addressed FIRST then any cap is just a temporary solution that is bound to make future problems worse
But oil is EVIL and we CANT produce it in our country. Bunch of morons that's the thinking that got Europe into this mess
Similar to Income Tax, everyone should get an amount of energy for free, then you pay, then you pay a higher rate (which covers the cost of the free supply).
That would encourage people to be energy efficient without pricing out the poorest.
Governments always ration everything by putting up costs, because they can afford it but that prices out poorer families.
This actually seems like a smart idea - pay for extra energy use. Maybe make the threshold somewhere around the rationing level. I can see it discouraging energy use, while making it cheaper for those that go over.
@D C Higher thresholds for bigger families or extenuating circumstances obviously.
The point is leaving a buildings lights on overnight would be discouraged. People who heat entire mansions would be more likely to heat fewer rooms to save money and poorer families and elderly can actually choose to eat food while staying warm.
@D C
You always have a problem for every solution.
It's the only reason you come here.
People have differing tax codes, for dependents and disability, the same could be done for energy, if not for all utilities.
No, why should the parasites get Energy for free?
No. You should not get anything for free just because you cant be arsed to get a proper job. If your'e so considerate than give all off your money away to those parasites, thief.
It is obvious, energy industry must be nationalised.
Excess profits are massive at the moment.
@@Craig121000 End sanctions & all your problems disappear. lol
@@Craig121000 It wouldn't cost anywhere near that, all it would cost is to set up an Energy company that charges less than everyone else, within months that company would be the only one around, job done, no company would need to be bought, just drive them out of business. Businesses do it all the time, they call it the law of the jungle.
@@Craig121000 if you are homeless, just buy a house 🤯
If the price of energy from producers is high, and they are abusing this for profit (which they might be) - nationalise them. If the national grid is abusing the situation for profit (which they are) nationalise it. The energy suppliers are here nor there, the cap effectively stymies them from abusing things too much.
But if that isn't possible, then Starmer's plan is at least some kind of middle here - make a publicly owned energy producer, hopefully this causes private competition.
National grid are not making super profits.
You want to nationalise the source energy producers? Shell, BP etc? The nuclear plants.
H aha ha ah ah ha....Have you been in a coma.....nationalise energy?...h ah a ha Remember Britoil.....Jeez....... read history and see if you can get a brain transplant...
They where once nationalised and the people on strike caused them to be privately owned and now we are paying the price of the striker's so just imagine the NHS being privatisation happening strike's work in favour of the RICH NOT THE GENERAL PUBLIC learn from history
@@danielwebb8402 Roughly half of the natural gas we use in the UK comes from the Crown Estate (primarily the North Sea). We should cap that price by changing the extraction licenses or putting a 100% tax on the sale price above the cap price and redistributing the money. It would cost the taxpayer *ZERO*, and given that ~60% of our electricity is generated from natural gas, it would also impact electricity prices.
@@jonathanbuzzard1376
Should we also give taxpayers money to Shell and BP to subsidise their say 2020 income below that cap?
Or you want an asymmetric one way bet?
Some nationalised interests in energy production and supply are essential, in exactly the same way that other countries have. Starmers idea of creating a new company seems feasible but there would be plenty of detai and strategy required to decide exactly the role it might take.
Yes just let them go under & then nationalise it.
Free markets until they go bankrupt then buy it back cheap.
Sure, good luck getting anyone to invest in anything again tho.
They'd have to be doing pretty badly to go under with 100% profit growth.
@@m4nt1c0r3s it's not like anyone's doing growth again ever is it, with a collapsing ecosystem. So it's infrastructure investment or f*ck all...
Not sure if you've been paying attention but energy companies aren't going under anytime soon lmfao
Yes we should. We should also nationalise the rest of the train services in the UK. I know some have been done but lets do all of them and bring down ridiculous prices.
It's been a while since my economics degree but to me it's long appeared that the energy market just does not suit a completely free market. Long Econ 102 post coming but hopefully works for some of you:
The key thing to remember is that you need energy for your home, you might be able to take more/less on a given day but you always need some and making big changes like insulating your whole home or re-wiring your house are expensive and take a long time.
- Energy generation - in general, a free market for this is fine as power plants will just be created to meet demand... which is great unless you have specific emissions targets, or are heavily dependent on foreign imports, are facing long term systemic issues like climate change, or if events like power cuts would be catastrophic (which all apply to the UK). It's not profitable to produce power plants that don't always need to be on, it's not profitable to invest in green domestic energy, the free market can't think with a 50 year+ horizon as it needs to focus on 3-10 year profits. As a result we have long spent billions paying private companies to make a profit on making and doing these things as cheaply as possible... and they just take the leftovers and give it to shareholders. A pure public energy generator could drive down green costs, promote energy independence and shore up production.
- Energy transmission - this is a pure natural monopoly. Your home can't have cables from multiple different power stations running into it all competing for your business. Right now we are paying the national grid to underinvest in the network so they can shift profits to shareholders and profits just jumped. There's no competition here - an efficiently run national grid managed by the government would mean resiliency and if run well, savings.
- Energy retailers - This system was working for a time. Effectively these companies bid for electricity from the energy generators and sell it onto you. Small players made money by being more efficient and promising good deals... which worked right up until prices of raw energy rose and they couldn't honour those deals and now billions spent shifting customers back to energy generators. The greater london authority had a small energy company for a time, i see no reason why this market couldn't include a national retailer whose job it is to service public sector and council tenants to ensure the best deal for government.
I think the private sector only works when there can be genuine competition. In electricity the market has to be artificially created just for the sake of privatisation. There could be a roll for the private sector in generation, but it makes no sense for the other 2 parts.
I think energy should be run more like the NHS. Private companies make medicines but the nhs negotiates the best deal to buy them on our behalf as a single buyer procuring what is needed for the country.
Currently consumers have to compare different suppliers trying to work out which is cheapest for their usage patterns. The market is a battle between suppliers wanting to charge more and consumers wanting to pay less, along with a huge amount of gambling and hedging about future prices. Privatised profits and socialised losses. It's so complex and doesn't need to be able if you stop being obsessed with marketising everything. Just have a single publicly owned supplier whoes job it is to procure the necessary electricity and charge consumers just enough to cover the costs of it. You can have different tariffs with different amounts of time differential or even supply demand reactive pricing, so consumers can choose how much price variability they can cope with. But they don't have to shop around among hundreds of tariffs because it's a bit for profit situation so they know they're not getting ripped off.
Great analysis. I'd just like to add that the best way to reduce energy costs is to have lesser demand for it. That cannot happen if something as basic as good insulation for homes is lacking. Why is it lacking? Because energy prices are capped and the deficit is subsidized via taxes. This obfuscates the real cost of improper insulation (a homeowner looks at their energy bill and thinks all is fine, ignoring the fact that a large chunk of their taxes should actually be attributed to heating costs).
The government could drive better insulation nation wide with price-based controls. Create a plan to have energy efficiency rating based tariffs for energy. Good energy efficiency has a lower tariff and poor efficiency has a more expensive tariff. This would drive homeowners to upgrading their insulation.
I don’t really see how nationalising energy will fix anything. The main reason why energy is expensive is because of global inflation issues and a decrease in supply related to Russia and others. If you cap the price of energy while all of this is going on then you will just have worse shortages as the energy all gets used up but there’s less money to get energy with. Having the government increase spending like this will also make inflation worse.
I also don’t see how the private sector would be worse than nationalised energy at dealing with climate change or planning long-term. Companies already massively invest in green energy and governments constantly increase their debt because someone else will be in charge when it catches up to them. The economic calculation problem also means that a national retailer would be worse than a private one.
All of these arguments does a good point ignoring the price controls instituted on the gas and electricity network companies since the inception of the privatization.
@@gatuarhin hi Gatuarhin - just to answer these - i feel like you've got the economic concepts down generally but not how they particularly apply to the energy market.
Price is up because of global supply issues - so counter point - France. France has a nationalised energy generator that due to national priorities generates most of its power through Nuclear energy - so as a result their price rises are capped to 15% next year. So while nationalising won't do much immediately - in the long-term a state provider can do things like make long term plans to invest in currently unprofitable energy in order to result in security and achieving national goals.
You're right in that normally price controls serve to result in shortages as things can't be made profitably. Three things to say on that: 1. electricity has a very inelastic demand - no matter what happens I will be really resistant to living in the dark if the price goes up. And likewise I don't see much benefit in putting a load of extra lights on - I am of course more aware one way or the other but ultimately I'm messing about with small percentages on the margin when the price changes. 2. The capped prices are still very expensive so people are still cutting back. 3. In the UK the prices are capped to guarantee profits to the providers, it's just the margin is very low.
I don't see how you can look at the private sector and think it's going to be better at governments for long term planning - governments are forced to build long term unprofitable infrastructure all the time for our own good. The vast majority of private sector investment is being driven by government policy and not out of the goodness of their hearts.
Finally - governments don't necessarily increase inflation if they REPLACE private sector spending - inflation is a function of total money supply and if the private sector stops and government picks it up then the effect is 0 - there is no more money. So inflation not an issue. Likewise governments don't have to increase debt and pass it on, we often hold governments to account and national debts fell in the 90s so it can happen again. Likewise a national provider doesn't have to give away money for free - charging a fair price could make it profitable for the government. Just as it's currently profitable for the french national energy giant to produce nuclear power in the UK
I’m all about this idea of energy nationalisation.
@@emekakhamun7005 the private companies would do that anyway.
Sweden's energy grid was nationalized by county, but when the huge finical crisis in 90s the county sold to companies. In my county the energy grid you've to pay the deliverer of the energy to whom owns the grid cost. From the 90s to now have increased up to 1600%.
There is a bit of extra complexity with the National Grid, since they are primarily responsible for the high voltage transmission network, i.e. anything in the tens or hundreds of kilovolt range that's generally carried on massive pylons. The step down transformers and cabling that takes the "low" voltage electricity in the hundreds of volts to homes, businesses, and light industry and infrastructure, is owned by a patchwork of regional distribution network operators (DNO), such as Electricity North West, UK Power Networks, and in the midlands, the National Grid itself. Would the government nationalise just the national grid, or these DNO's too?
Essential services such as water, heating, energy should never be privatized, because a privatized market is volatile, inflexible and unable to plan ahead, whereas a non profit public company can prepare for all eventualities when profit is not the main goal, privatization always drives up the cost when it comes to anything that needs good infrastructure because it's too tempting to take the profit rather than invest in infrastructure and measures for hard times, it just creates monopolies that overcharge and a more lacking service.
It's not so static.
Government owned entities tens to be slow and not efficient, gobbling up money as much as it can (higher taxes)
Private companies want to make a profit, lower governemnt budgets but the prices will be volatile
Stammer's idea is a step in the right direction, but come on, just nationalise the energy sector.
And public trandspirt and internet. These things are needed in every day lives and with them can help the uk economy
@@beanhole123 yeah, and become like russia, no mate, energy is enough
@@jimzimmer2048 how excatly are you comparing it to Russia. Public transport has major issues. From delays and price. Public transport would help those who can't drive. Helps with less cars on the road. Encourages people to go out and explore. Also helps as train prices imo are very over priced
Setting up a 3rd party that can be easily privatised in a few years is not a step in the right direction at all. It's more neoliberal 'solutions'
@@beanhole123 he prolly meant the internet part ... idk 🤷♂️ .... ( i don't agree with that tho )
Yes it should.
As with the trains, it has already, by other governments who have controlling shares in private operators. We indirectly subsidize foreigners' energy and travel. Nice one Tories.
Labour just want to copy Ecotricity. Not sure what the point in that is unless they can bring prices down.
@@Craig121000 and?
Renationalisation means the money isn't going off to the canarey islands or foreign governments.
But instead right back into our government to go and idk spend it on making public services better or soemthing.
@@Craig121000 you gotta spend money to make money back.
You don't want the french getting that money do ya?
@@Craig121000 that can make money going directly to the government to fund them public services even more...
I've been thinking something like this for the Danish energy market as well. At the very least, set up a nationalised "dummy" energy firm that can trade energy on equal terms as other companies and deliver the cheapest product. Here in Denmark the energy market was liberalized and you're able to buy power from a company located in the other part of the country despite not even being able to directly get said power generated, it's totally daft. So why not put a nationalised middleman into the system to "spy" on the grid and force competition?
A better question is
"Should the public understand the difference between their supplier, even if it were publicly owned, and the actual gas producers?"
Should the school curriculum scrap useless topics (i.e. 80%) and teach useful topics (i.e. how the world works)?
They still make more profits even if they're not the original producers
@@tomlxyz
Do they?
Is that why dozens went bust? Because making so much profit.
The supplier is basically a middleman that increases the end user cost of energy
@@Drakelett that's why we need jesus in school.
If Thatcher had left things publicly owned...and had tried to improve the energy companies efficiency.
Things that are necessary to life, like keeping warm and pharmaceutical treatments for serious illness should not be up for profit. A nationalised company should be more likely ( we hope) to plough profits back into the UK.
Energy should always be nationalized in every country.
exactly, it is about basic human needs. You can not trust those to privately owned companies that only care about making money.
@@MathijnvanderHeijden yes unlike government which doesn't have to care about budgets or being cost effective.
Yarp!
You know their is a difference between Publicly owned what we have in Florida and Nationalized like the post office? ! the people have a stake in the other it's wholly owned by the government.
@@SaintGerbilUK It does if governments want to be voted back in every five years or so, Energy companies are opaque and got their sticky fingers in lots of pies to suit themselves, nobody including and especially offgem controls them!?!
starmer's energy company sounds like a good idea actually. wont have to pay shareholders off.
but are shareholders the drivers of efficiency.
@@deehaytch8442 Shareholders are the drivers of profit. Profit does not equal efficiency for the end user.
@@colinhobbs7265 yes it does, if you don't care about costs or being value for money. you cost more and don't make a profit.
Just look at the NHS if you want an example of what government unlimited spending does, costs most, doesn't deliver a good service and has more managers than doctors and nurses.
@@SaintGerbilUK And yet the alternative is the US system where you're literally left to die because you forgot a piece of paper.
@@SaintGerbilUK You use the NHS as an example but vast swathes of their services have been privatised. So the 'unlimited' money that goes in goes straight back out to the private sector, often with worse results than if it stayed inhouse. Although don't disagree that there are way too many layers of management within the NHS, but then whose fault is that?
I have no clue why anybody thought it's a good idea to privatize energy in the first place.
'But muh capitalism' and the idea that profit motivated interests somehow would always benefit consumers as opposed to squeezing the blood out of every rock they can hold like it is now.
Tories 🤷
💰
The Tories did it to fill the treasury, then they used that money to "buy" the next couple of elections by cutting taxes and making all kinds of promises that they had no intention of keeping, so pretty much like this current lot.
its a good idea to privatize when MPs and their cronies can have a share of the multi billion industry.
I'm from the U.S.; each individual state has its individual and somewhat unique ways of dealing with power generation, storage, transmission, and usage. Just borrowing money might provide limited relief but there's no idea or thought to a remedy as part of that particular plan.
Honestly the national grid shouldn't be owned by a company with a monopoly as a core piece of national infrastructure, it's like having all the roads operated by a single for profit company, imagine the road tax/tolls. The minimum would be to limit energy industry wide profits to 2% in the uk, then the current workaround the profit cap (companies owning both suppliers and providers and selling gas etc to themselves at a massive profit so the 1.9% profit is no longer a cap) is no longer viable and the national grid cannot make 107% profit.
It will take years but nationalise energy again and when the contracts for rail are up start to nationalise them too. In the interim Starmer's plan is ok.
Who knew privatizing basic services everyone needs is a bad idea? :o)
it's almost like private companies only care about money and profit and therefore price gouges at every opportunity.
I’m in favor of things that are of National interest being in the hands of the state (just imagine if the police and armies were exclusively private and you’ll understand why I think what I think), but I doubt this would be a sweeping action that would fix the problems in Britain. First thing is removing the bloody tories from power. If needed, put in a national unity government in the hands of technocrats and clean up all the masses of entangled corporate interests in politics that are corroding democracy from within.
Give Truss and Kwarteng a little more time and the police and army will be in the hands of the NRA!
As ever, an interesting an informative video. Thanks. For future reference, BEIS is pronounced ‘baize’.
I think a fair way to "discourage use" would be to determine what a "fair amount" of energy would be, and then heavily subsidize that so that anyone who needed it could get it at a decent rate, and then heavily increase the cost of energy _above_ that level, so that while you could buy more, you would be careful to avoid it if you could. Overall it should still balance out to be less than people are currently spending in most cases, and only be higher for extremely wasteful cases.
Exactly how it works in India and China. The poor have a sensible electricity bill. The rich have an electricity bill that's 20x higher, since they run the AC all day long (and can afford to). The overall consumption is way lower than what you see in Western countries (as evidenced by their per-capita carbon footprint).
This would also influence homeowners in the UK to finally upgrade their insulation. British houses are infamous for being hot in the summers and cold in the winters. 😅
@@ChasmChaos
A lot less people can afford to use electricity in India tho, thats where you get people using less electricity from
@@thecalmclone2813yes, because supply and demand are managed by appropriate pricing. You have people earning around a dollar a day, as well as people earning $80K - $120K a year.
The high earners are able to (and do) pay big bucks for having a fully air-conditioned house, 24x7.
If there was a flat price, both rich and poor would be unhappy. There would be brown outs as the rich folks tried to keep their ACs on all day. And the poor would feel pinched as the average price would be way too high.
Something I wish this article had covered would be the cost of bringing the energy suppliers and generators under government control. I like the idea of doing it but the expense is substantial and not something that could be easily done. Labours approach makes a lot of sense in that it can (we hope) undercut other suppliers to the extent that it brings down costs overall and even that it might mean that GBE could buy out these other companies. For example, there's a minimum amount per KWH that Hinkley Point will charge. If it's being undercut then it could mean that the owners would consider selling it as the alternative might be that they have a plant making no money. Don't get me wrong, I realise this is all very hopeful but it shows how the simple change from Labour could lead to more substantial impacts over the long term.
Undercut by....
The lack of a profit margin being greater than the natural lack of efficiency of a government run enterprise?
The first of these is lower than the public assume. The second much greater.
@@danielwebb8402 You will have to qualify how there is a natural lack of efficiency in government run enterprises. I can accept there are past examples of a lack of efficiency but do not agree it's a natural consequence.
@@apkk5594
So it has happened nearly every time. But that's just a coincidence?
What motivation is there for efficiency in a public sector entity? Vs that in a private sector one?
Why would public sector energy provider want to save £2.50? Just carry on as is. Much easier life. Not exactly going to get sacked from public sector job if just chug along at 90%.
If a private company can do it 2% more efficient, take 1.5% profit margin, charge us 0.5% less. We win. No envy from me at the 1.5%.
And obviously a portion of that "profit" is actually even a risk free return on capital invested. Which the public sector company would need to cover their borrowing costs too.
People complained that Camelot were making 0.2p profit on their 1.2p they took from lottery tickets. Branson offered to do it non-profit. People cheered. For 1.5p.
@@danielwebb8402 I see loads of waffle but no answer to my question. The NHS is very efficient. The BBC is very efficient. You may not agree but you aren't prepared to demonstrate of this is the case. Your basically just giving an opinion unless you can back it up.
@@apkk5594
Agree the NHS is efficient. Hence the Conservative party keep it. Despite the "Sell our NHS" fairy tales often told e.g. Mr Corbyn 2019.
Is telling though that few countries in Europe, generally more left-wing than the UK, have a central government run agency providing 90%+ of their public healthcare. Given the NHS is this gold standard.
I'm not an expert on the BBC. The £3 a week it costs is cheap. It is a good example where it can't keep top talent as public services struggle to pay top wages. You'd not get top executives running this public energy service.
Do you remember British rail, BT, British Leyland... when run by the government?
There certainly are natural monopolies. Rail is a good example. Where the efficiency savings of the profit motive needs to be greater than the profit margin taken out in order to provide the public with value. I think in the vast majority of cases that has been shown to be the case.
Especially where they are allowed to be efficient. Hence the problems with only dinosaur industries striking like rail and Royal mail staff.
One of the "consessions" the rail staff will make in exchange for higher pay is moving away from paper time sheets.
Paper.
2022.
Yes yes yes, be a producer, not just selling others energy
They should have their own energy company too!
I did enjoy the video, but I was hoping this video would have some estimates of the cost of the different levels of nationalisation (or at least some estimates). If the Government have already shown that they’re willing to spend £60bn on a temporary solution I’d want to know what the cost of a possible permanent solution would be.
Is this information out there, does anyone know?
Renationalising Shell and BP is about 250bn.
I know that is for their global operations, but the media moronically mention their global profits as if they truly belong to UK individuals so.
@@danielwebb8402 you just summed up market cap, didn't you? Those numbers are private sector, not public sector. Nationalization doesn't necessarily require paying shareholders 100 % in a buy out
@@tomlxyz
Yep.
Because that certainly is the price you'd have to pay to nationalise them.
Why do you think you are entitled to steal private property? Paying 99% of market cap is stealing 1%.
This is actually a great explainer. I didn't know that energy retailers profits are capped. I did know that the retailers aren't the problem right now, but I didn't know their profits are capped. Very useful info
05:08 I hate to be pedantic but he has been suspended as a Labour MP but he remains a Labour Party Member, he was even at Party Conference this year but as a regular member.
The obvious solution is to have a slab-based system. The more energy you use, the more you pay.
India has been doing this for quite some time now, successfully too I should add.
The problem with the £2500 price cap is that it again only benefits the rich, which is insane when you think about it.
It doesn't. Only the rate is capped not your overall bill, those who use more pay more. Those who use less pay less. How does that only benefit the rich?
Evil margaret thatcher be like
I really hope she doesn't return this decade
Yes she was a nasty nasty piece of work but it was the 'working class idiot masses' that voted for her so ultimately we brought it all on ourselves - well didn't vote for her obviously but all my 'working class' friends, neighbours, colleagues and family did - still haven't forgiven them. Wouldn't mind up they were all bog standard office, factory, shop, security workers. :-(
Nationalise rail as well.
In short YES! Just heard on radio there could be cuts in electricity for up to 3 hrs this winter. In the days before Thatcher when the CEGB existed by law they had to provide power for something like 99.9% up time. Because of the demands on supply guarantee those supporting privatisation claimed they were too expensive and wasting tax payers money. Despite the fact we had energy bills and the government with the CEGB directed policy. In those days other than the 3 day week & winter of discontent we had no breaks in supply. The exception being bad weather causing local supply distribution, and even then they were around 60mins. We are now seeing the rewards for privatisation, a flaky supply on the brink of shutdown with peak winter demands, having to import electricity from Europe to meet peak and in some cases off peak demand, rocketing prices despite Trusses patches to look like government assistance & concern? and no energy policy which provides the country with a sustainable and economic energy supply.
France invested in nuclear power in the 80's. If I remember correctly they built 6 stations while Sizewell B was built, and sizewell B was a PWR because Maggie told Lord Marshall it had to be. Probably because of her special relationship with Ragan or the US. At the time we had an almost fully developed AGR design which used carbon dioxide for cooling. In other words it consumed Co2 and was considered clean energy. Post 80's with Maggies trashing of British industry we lost our recognition as a world leader in Nuclear, and the rest is history and we now buy our energy, water ect from foreign companies. Exporting our wealth at considerable expense. We were also world leaders with our National Grid power distribution once again privatised, with fingers & considerable cost in the US grid and adding to the cost of energy to the UK consumer.
Nationalize or not nationalize, the most important point is that consumers get energy at an affordable price.
My thoughts/worries exactly. It genuinely feels like there is no solution to these giant issues.
Wait a minute, UK grid is not nationalise ? It seems crazy from my outsider perspective. In France the grid is publicly own, it must create a bunch load of problems to have your grid privately own. I'm curious of how it all work. Soon our production will be back in full public ownership again, I am proud that my country has a good strategy in my opinion.
Correct - and yes, it is crazy! Actually, much of the power generation in the UK is owned by EDF, so France is directly benefitting from it at the moment. :)
The main pro of privatisation is that some services will be better run (at better value) by the private sector. Industries where it makes sense for companies to compete against each other to provide the best possible service should be privatised. Industries which are a natural monopoly or where the profit motive will make things worse for everyone should not.
It seems crazy to you because your national supplier EDF is making a killing off of us! :) [good on you - just remember that a dead customer is a bad customer]
The Spanish government owns Scottish Power, and is able to transfer the immense profits to its people while screwing the British for all their worth
Technically National Grid is a company wholly owned by the government so the profits they get go into the treasury just like a number of other privatised parts of the government like the Ordinance survey.
@phoebekearns is not technically right. The National Grid is a publically listed company. The government owns some shares in it but it is not publically owned, I could buy shares in it tomorrow.
To answer the original question though, they are privately owned water companies and communications and energy transmission companies… BUT they are all overseen by a strict regulator that mandates they hit certain standards and make only a maximum possible profit in order to preserve the public interest.
In the water sector this means the water companies get a charging cap, rates of leakage as targets (which can result in fines) and certain water/pollution standards.
In theory it works but at the end of the day a well run public company would provide more flexibility and cheaper services. The way we got here is that in the olden days the UK government underfunded publically owned companies and they got bad reputations
Always love your content. What I would have liked to see is a comparison of cost (taxes vs private payment) of the different options. Both parties simply shift costs to a different medium. Would have loved to see what might actually be cheaper.
Hello team TLDR, a suggestion (more of a pet peeve though). After a section of the script is done, instead of continuing with "Anyways", maybe change that to "Alright".
"Anyways" sounds like we're discarding/brushing off what the section covered.
Owning the/ part of the grid would be a competitive advantage: so it should be run be the state to ensure competition. Energy by itself is a basic good of living: it cant be subsituted. We have a state to ensure these basic goods. So the state also have to make sure to hold back a service at an existetial level, if the market is failing... as it is yet.
Considering that other governments are running UK energy companies, priviatisation makes no sense.
Yea. Privatization means you get reliant on outsiders.
When will you cover the Labour leaks TLDR???
Labour leaks?
@@SpartanJoe193 Check out the Al Jazeera 3=part documentary called 'Labour Files' 👍
We should do it because essential utilities should be under public control and not run for profit
Holy shit, can y'all imagine if the US & UK both nationalized their energy grids?
Reagan & Thatcher would be screaming at their TVs in hell.
I live in the US and over here there is opposition to the government having any control over utilities or services. However, nationalizing the power grid sounds like a good idea all things considered.
And that’s why we have so many issues.
I think Starmer's idea is good, essentially creating a British company to invest in physical energy generation sources in the UK. However, I don't see how this is nationalisation whatsoever. It'd be a private company. Which I am all for, as I believe that regulated private industry competition is better than nationalisation in most cases
I really don't like these semi public semi private approaches. Tend to cost a lot without providing good service
Private companies work for shareholders and NEVER their customers,
Energy production ownership means private companies can and do charge whatever they like for the all important energy. When nationalized the UK people, the taxpayers OWN the energy and can price it to the national grid for a decent profit and make UK sales inland cheaper and off sales aboard dearer. The investment to do that is massive BUT the UK people will own it and maintain it well enough more so than private firms do, if not as equal. I would rather OWN it as a UK taxpayer for the future growth and security of the UK energy production.
Putin has proven that owning Energy production is key to national security.
@@darrellpowell6042 yeah I hear you to a degree. I would discourage saying things like "private companies never work for their customers", which just isn't true. To return value to shareholders long-term, you have to provide value for customers, otherwise they will leave and you won't make any profit - which is the beauty of competition; customers can go where they choose. The risk of nationalisation, in my opinion, is creating a bloated organisation which doesn't need to improve to retain customers, as it is essentially a monopoly. However there are also pros, such as your point about national security and over-reliance on other countries' resources
Why exactly do we need energy companies unless they themselves are directly responsible for producing the energy?
It’s the way the Queen met Truss and reacted by just immediately dying
We need to nationalise the water companies too, the amount of filthy sewage they're releasing into our rivers and seas is absolutely abhorrent
Indeed.
Economically I tend to be slightly to the right, but I believe that any service that is essential to the citizens of a country should be nationalised.
Starmers idea seems like a good idea to me
Not sure I understand Great British Energy. Do they provide additional publicly-owned green power sources to ease the lack of energy or do they buy up existing ones with government money and then assist in the development of more power plants?
I think the idea is yes to all.
The video’s title asks if we should nationalise energy companies but it only answers how to nationalise the industry.
Nationalise only those things which simply must be nationalised. There is no space for competition within natural monopolies like rail and roads. Emergency services and the police, the military, etc. But if your problem with something is that it's too expensive, the last thing you should do is nationalise it, and in doing so remove the primary depressing force on prices. If we were to become self sufficient, with nuclear and fracking, we could drive prices down and quality up, and never have to be threatened with merely "winter" by another country ever again.
I believe all critical infrastructure needs some form of government oversight or direction. Whether that's done through state capitalism or government agencies doesn't really matter to me, however every "production/infrastructure step" should be a separate entity, e.g. fuel sourcing should be done separately from operating powerplants, the grid etc. same thing with railways, telecoms, water, sewage and whatever else is deemed critical infrastructure. That way every "step" should operate at a loss if desired, up to around zero to slight, capped profits, consult their budgets and the need for investment in their specific area of concern with the government separately. That could be done with a ministry of critical infrastructure. It could follow a similar model to roads and highways: administered by the state, maintained by city or regional road departments, whatever is practical for the scale of the relevant "step"
Can someone please explain to me what is the service that energy retailers are actually providing? Because from the sounds of it the energy is already reaching across the country before the retailers are taking their pay
BT, The National Grid and British Gas were awful before privatisation. Privatisation generally improved the service from them IMO. For example, unless you had a doctor's letter it could take weeks to get a telephone line.
Most services are awful prior to privatisation... but the question you have to ask is whether or not that's intentional. Historically the way to ideologically privatise a government service is to drop people in to manage it poorly, underfund it, attack it in the media, remove the public support then come to the "rescue" with a privatisation bill in parliament.
I'd point at the NHS as a key example that, over the last 12 years, has significantly deteriorated (even prior to the pandemic) in service at all levels, anecdotally and from a wider data/statistics perspective. The patient outcomes aren't getting better despite medical science and technology moving on at a rapid pace... and why is that? Well, look at the playbook - manage it poorly (lots of people blame the management of the NHS right now), underfund it (cuts, staff leaving the profession, removal of nurses bursaries etc.), attack it in the media (just this last couplle of weeks you get articles like "Jeremy Clarkson has said in his latest Sunday Times article that the NHS should be closed" etc.). It all adds to the removal of public support, followed by increasing privatisation until such a time as it can be completely sold off.
Also: I'm not convinced that British Gas is any better now than it was before. In fact, from interactions I've known about, they've been worse in the last five years than at any point prior.
Generally speaking, completely privatised infrastructure and completely nationalised infrastructure both seem to turn out pretty awful. The optimal balance generally appears to be a franchise model where the government chooses an operator based on their track-record, and then they get paid based on quality-of-service rather than profit.
@@iAmTheSquidThing That's definitely not true for the railways. I'm not convinced it's true for anything else, either.
Things have moved on - if the French (EDF) and Spanish (Scottish Power) governments can get this right, then so can we.
The government should own the company and run it as a going concern - even exporting energy to less enlightened right wing countries for a MASSIVE profit! (Hungary and Italy are ripe for the plucking)
So let's start with BT, or the GPO. So basically it was "awful" because for about 30 years it had been running around connecting on average 250k new phone lines every year using an old analogue system. So the reason you might have had to wait for a phone line was not that BT was awful but because the practicalities of connecting hundreds of thousands of people a year are challenging. I can't get FTTP today can I claim BT are awful as a result? Or would it be more accurate to say that wiring up millions of homes with a fibre connection will take time an I will need to wait my turn? Basically, by the time, BT was privatized the number of new lines being connected every year had fallen through the floor, so you were remembering a situation from several years before that had naturally improved but have erroneously determined it was a result of privatization. The same can be said about call quality, the introduction of SystemX exchanges was already underway *before* BT was privatized but because most people didn't see the benefit as their exchange was not done till *after* privatization they have again erroneously determined it was a result of privatization. So your opinion that privatization improved the service is because you are basically ignorant of the facts.
As for CEGB, National Grid and British Gas the service was remarkably better than it is now. In particular, the electricity companies didn't wait till the rotten poles were blown over in a gale before replacing them resulting in people being without power for days, but regularly surveyed the poles and proactively replaced them. The later is more expensive so guess what a cost-cutting private enterprise does?
If UK starts to produce more energy the supply/demand equilbrium should pull prices down. There could be an issue, as people interact with retailers, but they are at the end of chain so cant do much, since they are already competive and have low margins anyway. Retailers got the blame, but it was base supply issue.
Low margins but billions in profits collectively
absolutly. some parts of our infrastructre just run better when nationalised as you dont have to worry about turning a profit. Rail, Water, Energy all belong to that category and I'd argue so does housing.
The Idea of privatisation is that it's more efficient, which is generally only true because they don't serve the entire market, but at the same time they also eat that efficiency in the form of profits, which goes to the detiment of the consumer.
Doesn't mean you have to nationalise the whole thing either, just make sure there is a state owner alternative with guaranteed service.
The trouble is that energy is a market priced product. Rather than nationalising profitable businesses, which will be tricky when most of them are in other countries, ta,e them into Public ownership by having them owned by pension funds.
Shareholders are NOT the enemy, especially when most of them are only trying to take care of their old age.
Privatisation of major infrastructure has seen the profits drain out of the country to foreign corporations, if that money was to flow into the UK treasury it could be used to improve all public services and invest more in the UK.
Worked for Venuzuela.
Yes, and the trains as well. Any basic domain were you can't have companies offering a multitude of services in direct competition to each other should be run by the state
6:54 So, our taxes are going to pay for the company...so, we are going to be shareholder...so, are we going to receive dividends at the end of fiscal year for the profit made? or are going to be received as a tax rebate?
Romania has a fully nationalized distribution system and the energy production is 80% state owned.
Our energy prices are public. Check them out. They are still HUGE.
You need more production capacities before prices are likely to go down.
Thanks for the video. What an absolute mess, we dont need our food nationalised, the only reason there is talk of nationalising energy is because the government has been meddling with it for decades, not allowing generation e.g. no new nuclear in Scotland, not granting on shore wind turbine planning permission. And thank you for telling me that the government has capped energy retailer profits at 1.9% thus reducing incentives for them, and the energy price spike and government price cap forced many of them out of business so now we only have a few left and are at risk of oligopoly, then the government can come in nationalise it and say we saved the day from these greedy businesses, when it was a mess of there own making and we have been paying for it all along.
Energy production especially if it is environmentally friendly and the national grid be under government ownership as a cost recovery 'not for profit' entity.
Problem is how much
When you add up the problems we have regarding energy generation in the UK including the need to move away from fossil fuels, the lack of reliable and/or affordable gas supplies along with issues surrounding the condition of the national grid the fragmentation and limited investment due to the whole structure being controlled by corporations (who are duty bound to make a profit and provide dividends to investors) is shown to be extremely problematic. Nationalising the energy sector in the UK would allow the government to control both investments and pricing along with how said funds are spent (as in reniewable energy sorces rather than gas or coal power plants).
The problem with this is that UK governments (primarily Conservative ones) have a very bad history where it comes to running public services like this. They tend to not invest enough to either maintain or upgrade these services to an acceptable degree or privatise them peacemeal to the highest bidder (see what happened with the energy sector, telecoms sector, bus services and train services for details). The way Labour is setting this up to become a seperate entity from the government seems like a compromise in order to limit how badly his plans are recieved by the right wing press and make the general structure more 'privatisation proof' by concentrating on the generation part of the sector rather than the billing side of things.
Remove the pricing index that fixes the price of all electricity generated by all sources to that of electricity generated from gas fired power stations which is by far the most expensive way of generating electricity(and has been for years)and couple that with local electricity prices based on how much electricity an area or country within the UK generates and from what sources(with any shortfall bought on the UK or world market and any excess being sold)which could be set by Holyrood,Cardiff,Stormont and a Westminster committee or by local authorities running publicly owned energy companies
So how do the energy retailers do their thing? As in what exactly are they doing? They don't produce the energy and they don't distribute it, so what part do they play?
Only thing about Starmers plan is why would we make a new Public owned company to funnel tax into that eventually goes into the pockets of private energy companies that we already pay alot of money into?
All necessary services should be publically owned. The profit motive for e.g. electric delivery encourages ignoring upkeep and resilience in favor of providing attractive rates -- see for example the infrastructural issues in California, where PG&E for decades neglected to upkeep their equipment and have thus created a grid that can't absorb severe weather or fire damage. Forcing a provider to provide resilience in keeping with the importance of electric service would require a raft of regulators riding herd on every aspect of the company, and at that point it's better to just remove the profit incentive altogether and provide it as a fully transparent public service, just like water is. The goal should not be to extract profit, but to provide excellent, uninterrupted service.
I like Starmer's plan, but I think we should go further and nationalise the Power Plants & National Grid.
With both the sources of and the operator of the energy network under public ownership we would control our own energy production and ability to deliver it to homes.
Coupled with that we then invest heavily into further offshore wind, solar farms and nuclear to ensure the UK is 100% self sustainable and then we can always sell our excess energy to the European market.
Borrowing more money isn't the answer, it's just digging ourselves further into debt and the general public will be forced to foot the bill not the energy companies/national grid who've been making record billion £ profits.
Stating its capped at £2,500 isn't fully accurate. Prices per unit have been capped and the AVERAGE user will be paying around £2,500. Some people will be paying more and different areas of the UK are paying different prices too.
I wish that the energy cost cap was given in cost per unit not cost for the average user
@@crazycjk true but what all this has taught me is that people don't understand their energy usage. I've seen so many "I pay X per year" but that doesn't take into account house size, location, number of people etc. Let's talk UNITS
Not a UK citizen but a US one. Anyone else feel that basics like water, power, etc., should just be services we expect the government to provide? Modern Day argument, but at this point in human history should people still have to worry about freezing? Or dying of heat? No access to clean water? I know you guys do things way, way different than us so maybe the idea doesn't work, but it seems to me that it should just be a basic service like roads, rail, development, etc.
Fastest way to destroy anything that isn't based on executing force on others is to put it under government control.
Putting a cap on how much can be billed removes the incentive to be reasonable with the usage of the resource. Going the other way...Subsidizing the 1st portion of usage (amount of energy, not fiscal cost) then billing the remainder incentivizes usage only up to the subsidized limit.
Give incentives for achieving goals of what is wanted to occur.
Basic utilities shouldn't be run for private profits. Even if they're not fully nationalised, energy, water, gas, internet and housing should all be heavily regulated by a democratic government. Any profit should go towards R&D. Private investors and corporate executives are too untrustworthy and can't be held to account by voters.
Why doesn't the government set up its own energy retailer (as a non-profit retailer) to compete with the private retailers, and be able to run at a loss in times of greed?
I have no idea, I guess it be better the grid to be nationalized but have limited info on what this means.
Good explainer!
a good start, the railways should defo be on the shopping list too
Why isn't the national grid nationalised already?
I have a question: the power plants produce energy. The grid transfers the energy. What do the energy retailers do?
We should make the whole thing a non profit energy generation, grid and supplies. Along with all basic utility all profit should be used to lowering cost by reinvesting in a way that will lower cost or just lower the price.
'Every' country should own its own energy system. Ridiculous having different countries owning a stake in foreign energy generating plants - no matter where in the world they are. Likewise, Britain should not own stakes in energy companies abroad (and I hope Starmer believes in the fairness of that too).
As for keeping costs down - a much more sensible system is to have a tiered system of energy costs.
For example: a pre-October set rate for the first 175kw of electricity used per month (a pre-determined mix of both standard and off-peak rates).
After that, increase the cost per kw of electricity used in excess of 175kw per month, increase the cost per kw again should a household consume upwards of 250kw per month, and keep going up in increments - all this so that low energy users are rewarded for their economy, and the rich are charged fairly for using excessive and wasteful amounts of energy in their huge, draughty, energy-consuming houses...
This method would teach working and middle class people to turn down their music systems, not to leave the telly blaring in the other room when there's no one watching it, to turn off their computers at night, to get their kids to stop living in their bedrooms and be a part of a family once more, and not to heat the house to tropical temperatures including rooms that are not being used (because that was happening rather too often in homes of friends when electricity was a sensible rate!)
Rationing, by turning off electricity for all consumers in regions for a couple of hours a day for example, is distinctly unfair for those who do their utmost to economise normally and those who choose green energy companies as their suppliers.
Not one person is willing to say 'How are we going to fund this????
Retailer is a bad way to go!
Something needs to done.
I like the idea of a nationalized power grid from power generation to selling to customers. Energy is a utility and thus when I buy a house I am serviced by only one utility provider thus effectivly making it a monopoly allowing the company to charge what they want without competition. a nationalized power grid would still be a monopoly but the government isnt just in it for the profits but also the general goal of providing citizens with power so prices should be cheaper.
The BIG BUT is that the government just saying they are nationalizing something is just wrong. The government shouldnt be able to force a private company into selling themselves to the government. The government should have to negotiate and buy the company. They did mention that the energy companies would be adiquitly compensated but I have to wonder will that be the government setting the price or a negotiation to set the price.
Somebody explain this to me because I have no idea. Why are we capping energy bills? It helps people with large, poorly insulated houses and doesn't encourage people to save energy at all because once you hit the cap it doesn't matter.
Why not instead subsidise the first X number of kWh? This would help people with smaller houses and further encourage people to insulate well and save energy where possible, reducing total energy demand.
Why are bills even capped to begin with?
I might live in the USA, but I have no idea why prices are skyrocketing there and not here. Why not just talk to the companies about lowering costs? That's what we do over here and seems to work?
Victoria, Australia just announced they were nationalising the power industry
2:39 Why isn't the National Grid profit capped, at least temporarily?