ELECTRICITY COMPANIES' PROFITS

EDM number 952 in 1992-93, proposed by Simon Hughes on 26/11/1992.

That this House notes that the regional electricity companies and power generators are currently announcing record six-monthly profits; regrets that the botched privatisation of electricity has led to abuse of monopoly powers and artificially inflated profit figures at the expense of domestic consumers and businesses; believes that families in mining communities will find these record profit announcements particularly sickening when they face the prospect of spending Christmas on the dole; calls on the regional electricity companies to share some of their good fortune by reducing bills for pensioners; further believes that a reduction in pensioners' fuel bills would help to tackle deaths from hypothermia, for which Britain has the worst record in Western Europe; and calls on Her Majesty's Government to adopt a concerted programme to tackle abuse of monopoly power by privatised utilities, starting by referring the regional electricity supply companies to the Office of Fair Trading and the electricity generators to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.

This motion has been signed by a total of 30 MPs.