Npower boss warns that price freeze could mean lights out

Ed Miliband’s energy freeze pledge won him ‘political speech of the year’ but has had the unintended (yet inevitable) consequence of throwing the energy market into a spasm. The head of Npower, Paul Massara, has said that the political uncertainty means we may not have enough power to cover demand. He has told BBC Hardtalk:-

‘The amount of spare capacity to meet the peak requirement has dropped from somewhere around 15 per cent to five… and unless the UK can create a politically stable environment to attract new capital, that capital will not come in… The more government creates uncertainty with things like price freezes or other changes, it means there’s less certainty and less likely for capital investment.’

Miliband’s energy price freeze is a popular policy with the public: YouGov polling shows that almost three quarters of the public would support an energy price freeze.

It’s an issue on which Ed Miliband has seized the agenda, and even out of power he can still slowly drag Britain back to the 70s.