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Utility providers, Who can explain?
Without getting into a debate about who is responsible for overseeing price rises imposed by UK utility providers, can anyone explain why a well known water company can be told that they cannot raise their prices to a certain level but Gas and Electricity providers can increase their prices at will?
Their excuse being that they need "to invest" in infrastructure, As a small business owner If I need to buy new equipment to improve my service I have to take the money from my profits or take out a loan, if I raise my prices to my customers they will go elsewhere. We don't have that choice as once one utility company raises their price the rest are not far behind. And our government cant see that this is classic "cartel" tactics?.... or don't they want to see?
I understand That we don't buy water as such, my question was basically why should Gas/Electricity companies be able to get away with charging what they want when other utility companies are restricted by their governing bodies and or the government
2 Answers
- R 99Lv 78 years ago
There is no difference really in the behaviour of the water companies to the power companies, except the power companies are screwing us even harder, and for more money.
The government knows this, but because the Tories actually brought about the current shameful situation in both industries (plus a good few more) by selling off these nationalised industries in the first place, they can't afford to admit what a disaster it has been. That would mean they would have to admit that thier obsession with privatisation of key strategic industries, which Thatcher was hell-bent on doing in the face of the best advice, was in fact a catastrophic failure, and an obviously and terminally stupid thing to do.
The government only chose the 'softer' option of blocking a couple of water industry price rises because they are now so acutely aware of the public rage about being ripped off, that they felt they had to be seen to do something to save face, no matter how little, or how inadequate.
- TavyLv 78 years ago
We don't buy water. The G& E companies buy wholesale which is where their argument is. Water is free but the cleaning etc of it costs money. Here in the SW, we have the highest water rates in the UK, due to EU regs which state we must keep the beaches clean. ( lot more to it than that) but that is their basic argument. There comes a time when they must be told to stop implementing rises for no reason.
UK