'A slap in the face to all those who have been struggling with the sky-high cost of energy'
The CEO of the company Centrica, who owns British Gas, has had a whopping £4.5 million pay packet approved by shareholders, despite a backlash from campaigners and trade unions.
At the company’s annual meeting on Tuesday, 93% voted in favour of approving Chris O’Shea’s remuneration packet, which comes on top of his annual salary of £790,000.
This is despite a cost-of-living crisis where people have been left unable to pay their energy bills, and follows on from British Gas being embroiled in a scandal over debt agents breaking into vulnerable customers’ homes to force fit pay-as-you-go meters.
Mr O’Shea presided over British Gas during the debt enforcement scandal.
Unite the Union had previously urged Centrica shareholders to reject what the union called an ‘obscene’ bonus, after its details were revealed earlier in the year.
Sharon Graham, Unite general secretary, previously said O’Shea must be ‘laughing all the way to the bank’.
“Chris O’Shea’s apology for British Gas sending debt enforcement agents to break into the homes of its poorest and most vulnerable customers to install prepay metres means nothing.” Said Graham.
“Mr O’Shea’s obscene bonus is just one glaring example of the epidemic of profiteering afflicting the country. Corporate greedflation is breaking our economy and something needs to be done about it.”
O’Shea had previously said he was, “genuinely gutted and truly sorry that our actions had fallen short of the high standards that we set ourselves”.
But his bonus will not provide any solace for affected consumers, described further as ‘a slap in the face to all those who have been struggling with the sky-high cost of energy’ by Alice Harrison of the campaign group Global Witness.
It was also revealed ahead of the Centrica AGM that British Gas profits for its household supply business are expected to come in ‘significantly higher’ over the first half of the year.
As a direct result of the energy crisis, which has seen people’s electricity and gas bills soar to unaffordable heights, Centrica’s profits tripled in 2022 to a record-breaking high of £3.3 billion.
The government has capped annual household energy costs to £2,500 for the average household but that is due to end this month.
Hannah Davenport is trade union reporter at Left Foot Forward
Left Foot Forward’s trade union reporting is supported by the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust
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