TUC urges UK Government to cut industry electricity costs
A three-point plan from the Trades Union Congress (TUC) aims to boost industry.
The TUC claims UK industrial electricity prices are at least 50% more than European ones, with charges for getting on the grid (i.e. network charges) being close to Germany and France, but subsidised a lot less.
To tackle this, the TUC’s three-point plan consists of:
- Guarantee wholesale price parity with European competitors – they propose a two-way contract that would see UK prices be indexed to a European benchmark, with the Treasury subsidising the difference.
- Match France and Germany for network charge compensation – German and French prices are similar but their governments subsidise 90% of the fee compared to the UK subsidising 60%.
- Remove legacy policy costs from electricity intensive industries – this would ease initial pressure and could be transferred to general taxation with part recouped over the long term.
The TUC claims this could reduce costs by more than £60 per MWh, but estimates costs to the Treasury would be £1.8bln in the coming year.
However, the TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak says, ‘The cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of support’ and claims the figure would be offset by positive benefits of action for workers and businesses.
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