Fight for power

OFGEM’S revelation that the big six energy firms have increased their profits eightfold since June will undoubtedly make millions of irate customers even more furious. After all, these profits come as the government tells us there are now one million Scots households living in fuel poverty, unable to afford the £1,345 now demanded of them for gas and electricity.

And the reasons for their plight are plain to see. Energy bills have doubled in the past five years, while wages, benefits and pensions have not.

The combined bill for gas and electricity now also includes 20 per cent VAT, which means we are paying some of the highest energy prices in the world at a time when living standards are plummeting.

Chancellor George Osborne may wish to reflect on the wisdom of his decision to cut the winter fuel allowance paid to pensioners. And Alex Salmond should likewise reverse his decision to withdraw help to those trying to install more efficient heating systems and improved household insulation.

And the timing of the SNP government’s decision earlier this year to abandon the promise it made in 2007 to eradicate fuel poverty in Scotland by 2015 plainly couldn’t be worse.

Colin Fox

Scottish Socialist Party

Alloway Loan

Edinburgh

SURELY each and all of us who have Scottish interests at heart will be delighted to learn that BP gets the go-ahead for a lucrative £4.5 billion oil project in the North Sea.to the west of Shetland (your article, 14 October).

Experts maintain that the new Clair Oilfield will help create in the region of 3,000 jobs for the next 40 years. More than likely there are many more oilfields to be discovered on the west coast of Scotland.

Donald J Morrison

Haig Street

Portknockie, Buckie

WHY don’t Treasury ministers “tax grabbing” from the North Sea oil industry visit or revisit Adam Smith (Perspective, 12 October)?

His principles of taxation in book five of The Wealth of Nations are pointedly relevant today. Important are injunctions that the system should be certain, convenient and “take as little as possible”.

Significantly, a tax mustn’t discourage entrepreneurial effort especially when it gives “employment to great multitudes”.

Ellis Thorpe

Old Chapel Walk

Inverurie