Firm fuel the poverty gap

AS pensioners face having to choose between heating and eating, the energy boss who tripled their bills will leave his post with a cool £15m.

Energy prices have skyrocketed

THOUSANDS of pensioners across Scotland will today sit freezing in their homes because they can’t afford to pay crippling energy charges.

As temperatures continue to plummet, some of society’s neediest will be so cold that they will forego a meal just so they can run their radiators for an extra half-hour.

It is a sickening situation that simply should not happen in a country as wealthy and blessed with oil as Scotland.

A Scottish Government survey published at the end of last year revealed rocketing fuel prices have pushed more than 100,000 Scots into fuel poverty. That so many people are in such a dire situation is quite obscene.

However, it is a grim reality that has been brought about by shameful pricing policies pursued by energy firm bosses like Ian Marchant, who have been allowed by a lack of regulation to make vast wealth from an industry which should be a public service.

There is no doubt the tripling of electricity and gas bills during Marchant’s decade at SSE has had a crushing impact on the poor and vulnerable in Scotland.

But it has proved very lucrative for the 51-year-old, who will leave his job with an astonishing £15million golden farewell.

To most Scots, £15million is such a fortune, it is hard to comprehend how one man could accumulate it.

The unfortunate answer is Mr Marchant has managed it by profiting from a business supplying an essential service we all depend on.

Despite constant complaints about the price-setting policies of SSE and the other big six energy companies, politicians have done nothing – and that is as true of the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as it is of David Cameron and his shower of millionaires who have no idea what it’s like to choose between eating and heating.

Ironically, MSPs were debating the misery caused by fuel poverty at Holyrood again yesterday.

The Scottish Government spent the session blaming Westminster for failing to do enough to stop the energy companies.

But while that debate was in progress, First Minister Alex Salmond released a statement calling Marchant an “outstanding” leader who had shown the drive “to galvanise action around the important issues of the day”.

Perhaps the SNP should take a look at their relationship with the energy giants before casting any stones.

Cam shambles

THERE was a lot of padding and a lot of ifs around the one stick of dynamite in David Cameron’s long-awaited EU speech.

The Tory leader promised a vote on the European Union, but not now and not for another four years – and only if he is re-elected and only if can get a better package for Britain from the EU.

The Prime Minister was left unable to answer the obvious telling questions which immediately followed.

What will he do if he cannot get a renegotiated deal for the UK? Which way would he vote then, to stay or go? And how can he get a deal from 26 other countries while he stands in the departure lounge?

And if the question is so fundamental, why cause the years of economic uncertainty that a delay would cause? That is the charge that was made about Alex Salmond’s decision to put off Scotland’s date with destiny until 2014.

If that is an unacceptable delay, why wait until 2017 and “never-never land” for an EU vote?


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