Too little help for families and too much profit for oil and gas giants, says TUC

Commenting on the proposals announced by the government today to support households and businesses with energy bills, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said:

“Freezing energy bills this autumn is essential for families and to protect jobs and businesses.

“But the Prime Minister is making the wrong people pay. She should have imposed a much larger windfall tax on profiteering oil and gas giants. And she should have required all firms getting help with energy bills to commit to no lay-offs for the lifetime of the help, to protect livelihoods.

“And it’s not just energy bills soaring – so she needs to do more to help families get through the winter. That means a real plan to get wages rising, a big boost to universal credit, child benefit and pensions, and a massive rollout of home improvements to cut bills. And it’s time to bring energy retail into public ownership to make sure this crisis never happens again.”

The TUC says that the government should set out a programme to make UK living standards more resilient and the UK economy more resistant to a future crisis. This should include:

  • Increase the windfall tax to a fairer level relative to the excess profits oil and gas firms are making.
  • Rapid rollout of home energy efficiency and taking the energy retail companies into public ownership – including a new approach to energy pricing with a free band of energy to cover basic lighting, heating, hot water and cooking.
  • A plan to get pay rising for all workers – including stronger pay bargaining rights so that working people and their unions can make fair pay agreements across whole industries.
  • Increase the minimum wage to £15 an hour as soon as possible – by returning the UK to normal wage growth and having a more ambitious minimum wage target.
  • Social security that prevents poverty – universal credit and benefits should be raised to 80 percent of the national living wage, along with a significant boost to support for families with children.