Adam Gilman, Reading Socialist Party
Wholesale gas prices are lower now than at the start of the war in Ukraine, and are a quarter of what they were last autumn.
However, working-class people are still paying record-high amounts in their household bills. Energy suppliers buy their gas in advance to protect their short-term profit, so lower prices won’t be immediately passed onto consumers.
Energy companies have enjoyed huge profits at the expense of households in the last year – prices surged, but their costs remained much the same.
Shell paid £0 in windfall tax, despite record global profit of £26 billion in the first nine months of 2022. And ExxonMobil has launched a legal challenge against even the minimal windfall tax
This is why companies like Shell, ExxonMobil and the other energy giants should taken into public ownership – nationalised under democratic workers’ control and management to reduce our bills and ensure jobs are reallocated to more environmentally friendly sustainable work.
