The TUC has called for urgent action to address the crisis
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has issued a stark warning about the scale of the energy crisis facing the UK. According to new analysis published by the union confederation, energy bills could cost more than two months of the average take-home pay in 2023.
The TUC’s assessment comes as the typical energy bill is forecast to rise to over £4,000 per household in January. The TUC has estimated the average take home pay to be at £2,054 per month after tax in 2023, based on wage growth projections from the Bank of England. This means the average household will be expected to hand more than two months of an individual’s pay to their energy supplier.
In light of the shocking projections, the TUC has called on the Westminster government to bring trade unions and businesses into the Treasury in order to pull together an emergency response to the crisis.
Alongside this, the TUC has issued a series of proposals it claims will provide immediate mitigation for the cost of living crisis.
The TUC has called for the planned rise in the energy price cap in October to be scrapped, with the energy retail companies being taken into public ownership. Previous analysis carried out by the TUC has suggested this would cost £2.85bn.
Alongside this, the TUC has called for the minimum wage, universal credit and state pension to be increased in line with inflation, and for the treasury to fund pay rises in the public sector that keep up with inflation.
Speaking on the intervention today, Frances O’Grady – the TUC’s general secretary said, “No one should struggle to get by in one of the richest countries in the world. But up and down the country, millions of families are being pushed to the brink by eyewatering energy bills. With prices set to skyrocket even further, it’s time to say enough is enough.
“Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak need to wake up to the size of this crisis. This requires a pandemic-scale intervention. Ministers must cancel the catastrophic rise to energy bills this autumn. And to make sure energy remains affordable to everyone, they should bring the energy retail companies into public ownership. Ministers should also act to boost pay – as well as Universal Credit, pensions and the minimum wage by bringing forward planned increases to October.
O’Grady added, “Without a long-term plan to prevent a similar living standards emergency, we will keep lurching from crisis to crisis. After the longest and harshest wage squeeze in modern history, that means getting wages rising in every corner of the country by strengthening collective bargaining. It means boosting Universal Credit so that working people have an adequate safety net. And it means fixing our broken energy market by lifting the burden of failed privatisation off families to get bills down for good.”
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
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