Andrew Dismore

Andrew Dismore, Labour London Assembly member for Barnet and Camden and Labour candidate for Hendon today challenged energy company EDF over their profiteering, during a hearing of the City Hall Environment Committee. Mr Dismore also raised the impact of Government cuts in the “Energy Company Obligation” to fund retro fitting of homes in Barnet  to save energy costs, meaning  that 300 to 400 vulnerable people in the borough would  now not have the work they otherwise would have had done to make their homes more energy efficient, thus reducing their fuel bills. 

Mr Dismore said:

The decision of the Government to let off the energy companies from  their obligations to fund works to make the homes of vulnerable people  more energy efficient is a false economy. Those whose homes would have been retro fitted for example with insulation would have seen a dramatic reduction in their fuel bills, which they will now not have.

The Government say this was to ease everyone’s bills by £50 but that is not good enough. EDF had no answer to my challenge to them, that they made £1 billion profits in just  6 months, that they have not passed on the £50 saving to those on fixed tariffs, and that the way they sell wholesale electricity to themselves then to retail on has cost households  an average of £150.

We need a price freeze on fuel bills until the market can be reformed to stop such abuses by  the big 6 energy companies. The Government is deaf to this suggestion, yet I have been able to collect hundreds of signatures locally of people who agree with our petition that this is the right way to go.”