Real culprits in energy bills row

ACCORDING to Scotland on Sunday, the public now trust energy companies even less than estate agents and car salesmen (News, 3 November). Well, why should they trust privatised multinational corporations whose primary purpose is to increase profits by any means available within the law?

This is surely a case of misplaced mistrust. The real target should be the governments that have served their electors so badly by failing to establish adequate legal and policy frameworks to prevent such rampant exploitation. The fully lawful use of tax havens to minimise contributions to national exchequers while consumers face ever rising bills is but one example.

The present Scottish Government is particularly culpable in this respect. They have traded on public acceptance of the mantra that “we need to do something about climate change” without demonstrating that they are doing anything other than fostering an illusion.

On figures released last February by National Grid and the industry lobby Scottish Renewables, carbon savings by all British wind farms amounted to one 5,000th part of global carbon emissions a year. That was far less than 1 per cent of the global increase in carbon emissions for the same period. Yet the costs of this political-correctness-on-stilts are heaped onto people’s energy bills, and the scramble by multinationals for ever more wind farms is actively encouraged by government.

We urgently need an independent, expert commission on all aspects of energy policy, ring-fenced against manipulation by politicians and the corporate sector for political and financial advantage.

Ken Brown (Dr), Glenmoriston, Inverness