Energy crisis plan must help small business as well
In the absence of a functioning Government the energy industry seems to be lumbering towards a resolution of the energy crisis under its own steam.
The plan outlined to MPs by Octopus Energy chief Greg Jackson contains much to recommend it.
Like the Pool Re reinsurance scheme set up to underwrite terrorism losses in the early Nineties, it would harness the financial muscle of the City and combine it with the balance sheet of the state to provide a solution to a potentially disastrous threat that the market cannot cope with on its own.
The focus has rightly been on supporting the millions of vulnerable domestic consumers who could be facing destitution this winter.
But the plan does not immediately address the fears of business customers beyond saying that the energy panel would be set up “to look at ways of keeping bills affordable for both domestic and non-domestic customers over the longer term”.
In the meantime untold thousands of businesses — many already sapped of strength from years of Covid losses — face the prospect of uncapped energy bill hikes that could prove the tipping point into failure.
We are already learning of London businesses that have seen energy bills double or treble — with worse on the way.
Small businesses rarely have that option and many of them will now be viewing the coming winter with understandable anxiety.
Thousands of jobs and livelihoods depend on these outfits getting at least some level of help from the same sources of funding that are now being rightly marshalled to rescue households.
