{"id":87419,"date":"2025-11-09T10:57:42","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T10:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=87419"},"modified":"2025-11-09T10:57:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T10:57:42","slug":"energy-privatisation-is-bust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/11\/09\/energy-privatisation-is-bust\/","title":{"rendered":"Energy privatisation is bust"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is time to give up the pretence that there is a viable neoliberal market in the supply of domestic energy in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>As the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/business\/2025\/11\/09\/energy-giant-ovo-slashes-costs-in-survival-plan\/?WT.mc_id=e_DM730061&amp;WT.tsrc=email&amp;etype=Edi_Cit_New_v2&amp;utmsource=email&amp;utm_medium=Edi_Cit_New_v220251109&amp;utm_campaign=DM730061\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Telegraph reports<\/a> this morning:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Ovo Energy is preparing to slash tens of millions of pounds in costs under a radical plan to secure its survival.<\/p>\n<p>In a bid to convince the regulator of its financial viability, Britain\u2019s fourth-largest\u00a0<a class=\"ck-custom-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/money\/consumer-affairs\/ovo-energy-wont-stop-threatening-me-over-45k-bill-for-phan\/\">gas and electricity supplier<\/a>\u00a0is plotting deep spending cuts to areas including advertising and brand building activities.<\/p>\n<p>The cuts come as Stephen Fitzpatrick, Ovo\u2019s founder, scrambles to meet tougher financial rules imposed by Ofgem.<\/p>\n<p>Under the energy regulator\u2019s new regime, introduced after dozens of suppliers collapsed during the energy crisis in 2022, Britain\u2019s biggest suppliers are required to hold a certain level of cash based on how many customers they have.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Another multi-billion-pound bailout no doubt looms, with the government still refusing to get the message that the UK's private utility supply model is fundamentally bust by design.<\/p>\n<p>When will the lesson be learned, not least when the public is quite sure they would rather this service be nationalised?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is time to give up the pretence that there is a viable neoliberal market in the supply of domestic energy in the UK. As<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/11\/09\/energy-privatisation-is-bust\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,224,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-neoliberalism","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87420,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87419\/revisions\/87420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}