Labour will slash energy, water and
post bills through public ownership
Labour will
cut household bills by £220 a year under public ownership of utilities.
Households are being ripped off with sky-high bills for energy, water and post
to pay out billions of pounds to shareholders. Labour will fix this broken
model which makes ordinary people pay for excessive wealth in the hands of the
few by instead bringing our utilities into public ownership for the benefit of
the many.
Labour will:
•
Make households £220 a year better off under public ownership models for energy
and water.
•
Cap energy bills, invest in renewable energy and under public ownership bills
will fall.
•
Bring water companies into public ownership to drive down bills, reduce leaks
and end the shareholder racket.
•
Compensate for bringing water, parts of the energy sector and Royal Mail into
public ownership by exchanging government bonds for shares in the relevant companies.
The rigged system:
•
Water companies paid 1,000 times more in dividends than in tax in the last ten
years. Three of them – Anglian, Severn Trent and Yorkshire – paid more in
dividends than they made in profit in that period, meaning they were borrowing
on the back of household bills to pay shareholders.
•
Electricity bills soared by 20% between 2007 and 2013. £120 was paid by every
household in the UK for dividends to energy company shareholders in 2013 alone.
•
Since privatisation, Royal Mail has paid out £640 million in dividends in just
three years while closing 10% of delivery offices
Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour
Party, said:
“The Tories
have rigged our economy so that bill payers fund wealthy shareholders of companies
which in turn pay little in tax. It doesn’t have to be this way.
“Labour
will rebalance our economy so that the many are no longer ripped off by the
wealthy and powerful few. Labour will transform our energy, water and mail
markets so that they work for consumers. Our plans for public ownership and
greater transparency will slash bills and drive investment in efficiency and
renewables.
“Under a
Labour government, our economy will work for the many, not the few.”
Follow this news feed: Labour