| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? 11:44 - Aug 15 with 4035 views | Ryorry |
Apart from lining their execs' & shareholders' profits, obvs.
Can't find the specific link from about 2 days ago highlighting that dozens of disabled and chronically ill 80-90 year old residents of blocks of flats in E. London have been left without running water for 5+ days, with Thames Water's response being to dump 6l of bottles per person per day in the groundfloor entrances, but these give some general background as to problems in the area -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/art
https://www.theguardian.com/uk
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 12:04 - Aug 15 with 2360 views | Churchman |
None whatsoever.
The plebs believed the lies and we are all paying for it. I refused to buy shares in something I already owned and it was obvious what’d happen when the mugs supported it for a few quid.
I had hoped the current government would do something about it - especially water. But nah. Come on Mr Burnham, on your ‘Royal Progress’ around the country, why not visit these people to listen to what’s bothering them?
Those articles are a disgrace, Ryorry.
Still, the new Finance Officer for Thames water is being looked after with a £1m signing on fee, so some (well, one person) is doing ok and the 40% increase in bills had to be spent on something. |  | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 12:04 - Aug 15 with 2363 views | Trequartista |
Competition keeps prices lower, which is clearly not the case with water as there isn't even any competition. It's been the worst privatisation on many levels as far as I can tell. |  |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 12:06 - Aug 15 with 2336 views | baxterbasics |
Ask Google Gemini:
"list some of the benefits of privatising utility services like gas, water, phones - from a UK perspective."
You'll get loads.
I'd paste it here but the text doesn't format cleanly, I don't have time to type. |  |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 12:19 - Aug 15 with 2247 views | Churchman |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 12:04 - Aug 15 by Trequartista |
Competition keeps prices lower, which is clearly not the case with water as there isn't even any competition. It's been the worst privatisation on many levels as far as I can tell. |
True competition does that and also generates innovation. But utilities are more like monopolies or cartels. There is no incentive to keep prices lower, invest or innovate.
The only driver is profit and money for shareholders. You milk the assets. Rinse people because you can. Invest? Why? If I was the boss of a water utility I’d put a stop to all maintenance and ramp up the prices to consumers until diminishing returns set in. Service and obligations are utterly irrelevant, especially if I live in a far flung country.
Water companies were solvent when they were flogged off. The first thing the new owners did was raise money against the business and pay themselves out. Handsomely. For years. I don’t blame them.
There’s nothing illegal in what they did. I blame those who promoted it and others who allowed it to happen. So they created that useless bunch Ofwat etc. whoopee. That was the equivalent of ripping an arm off and offering the victim a sticking plaster.
We all know who were responsible for this disgrace, but it’s what happens now that matters. As previously, probably zippo. | | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 12:21 - Aug 15 with 2228 views | naa |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 12:06 - Aug 15 by baxterbasics |
Ask Google Gemini:
"list some of the benefits of privatising utility services like gas, water, phones - from a UK perspective."
You'll get loads.
I'd paste it here but the text doesn't format cleanly, I don't have time to type. |
Privatisation only works if there is competition. The phone market now has plenty, energy does to some extent but prices are now so high everyone just charges the ofgem cap level.
Rail was supposed to have competition but never really did. Water doesn't have any.
Spot which of these failed the worst... [Post edited 15 Aug 12:31]
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:11 - Aug 15 with 2096 views | J2BLUE |
Nationalise water.
Set up a state energy company.
Set up a state supermarket. Not for profit. Living wage paid. Prices set to get the highest quality healthy food to the population. Fruits, veg, dried legumes to be pennies. Meats, eggs, milk all organic free range. Junk food limited to one aisle. 10% tax on those products to subsidise discounts on the healthiest foods and self care products. 5% discount to over 65s who shop Mon-Fri 9am-5pm. Other supermarkets available. No one forced to shop at Britmart. |  | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:15 - Aug 15 with 2084 views | You_Bloo_Right |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 12:06 - Aug 15 by baxterbasics |
Ask Google Gemini:
"list some of the benefits of privatising utility services like gas, water, phones - from a UK perspective."
You'll get loads.
I'd paste it here but the text doesn't format cleanly, I don't have time to type. |
'No results found for "list some of the benefits of privatising water utility services - from a UK perspective.".' |  |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:17 - Aug 15 with 2073 views | NthQldITFC |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 12:06 - Aug 15 by baxterbasics |
Ask Google Gemini:
"list some of the benefits of privatising utility services like gas, water, phones - from a UK perspective."
You'll get loads.
I'd paste it here but the text doesn't format cleanly, I don't have time to type. |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:22 - Aug 15 with 2000 views | NthQldITFC |
A perpetual con trick - corruption dressed up as somehow 'better'.
OK, fifty years ago public ownership was beset with inefficiency, but there has to be a more rigorously administered way to do public ownership, particularly with modern technology to help make sure people at all levels are doing an honest job.
You need to start from a fundamental and incorruptible basis of "corporate interests (domestic or foreign!) should not be taking profits out of something which is for the common good". Basic. Fundamental. Unchallengeable. | |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:24 - Aug 15 with 1990 views | NthQldITFC |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:11 - Aug 15 by J2BLUE |
Nationalise water.
Set up a state energy company.
Set up a state supermarket. Not for profit. Living wage paid. Prices set to get the highest quality healthy food to the population. Fruits, veg, dried legumes to be pennies. Meats, eggs, milk all organic free range. Junk food limited to one aisle. 10% tax on those products to subsidise discounts on the healthiest foods and self care products. 5% discount to over 65s who shop Mon-Fri 9am-5pm. Other supermarkets available. No one forced to shop at Britmart. |
Bang on J2, my brother in arms. | |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:52 - Aug 15 with 1901 views | saxon |
Buying a few privatisation shares and becoming house owners persuaded my parents that they were now the shareholding/homeowning class that should naturally align with the Conservative party that facilitated that.
So I suppose a benefit to the architects of the privatisation was that it bought votes. | | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:58 - Aug 15 with 1891 views | Radlett_blue |
The main reason for privatising water was to fund the amount of investment that the ancient infrastructure needed, partly to meet new EU directives. The government wrote off the industry's debts so that it would be able to raise new debt cheaply to fund this investment. If water had remained nationalised, the debt would all have been included in the national debt, impacting Britain's credit rating & ability to fund our debt cheaply. Obviously, an alternative would have been to keep water in public ownership & raise the money through higher taxes, but that went against Thatcher's tax cutting philosophy. |  |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 14:13 - Aug 15 with 1833 views | Churchman |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:58 - Aug 15 by Radlett_blue |
The main reason for privatising water was to fund the amount of investment that the ancient infrastructure needed, partly to meet new EU directives. The government wrote off the industry's debts so that it would be able to raise new debt cheaply to fund this investment. If water had remained nationalised, the debt would all have been included in the national debt, impacting Britain's credit rating & ability to fund our debt cheaply. Obviously, an alternative would have been to keep water in public ownership & raise the money through higher taxes, but that went against Thatcher's tax cutting philosophy. |
The problem is that if you flog off all your assets, including buildings, your credit rating gets hit anyway.
An article with competing arguments from 7 years ago. It’s still relevant:
https://www.ciwem.org/the-envi
One quote from it from David Hall:-
‘after 25 years, water prices had risen by 40 per cent above the general rate of inflation, and the amount of shareholder money in the companies has reduced in real terms.
Despite acquiring the companies debt-free, the owners have accumulated debt of more than £50 billion, effectively used to finance dividends of over £50 billion. The annual cost of these dividends and interest on the debt is £2.3 billion a year more expensive than it would be under public ownership.
The companies’ performance has been equally poor. Sewage flooding remains a major problem, with repeated problems and fines. Thames Water has been a repeat offender, but the new super sewer being constructed to deal with the problem is another economic problem. As Thames refused to finance it by itself, the super sewer is financed by government loans and by an extra charge on consumers even before it is finished.‘ | | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 14:34 - Aug 15 with 1790 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:11 - Aug 15 by J2BLUE |
Nationalise water.
Set up a state energy company.
Set up a state supermarket. Not for profit. Living wage paid. Prices set to get the highest quality healthy food to the population. Fruits, veg, dried legumes to be pennies. Meats, eggs, milk all organic free range. Junk food limited to one aisle. 10% tax on those products to subsidise discounts on the healthiest foods and self care products. 5% discount to over 65s who shop Mon-Fri 9am-5pm. Other supermarkets available. No one forced to shop at Britmart. |
No point in a state energy company at this point. They don’t own any of the grid/infrastructure, all the margin is in the downstream (I.e utilities profit only makes around 2pc of your bill). The most sensible thing would actually be for the state to buy equity in the downstream sector and use the income for public services, or reinvest into renewable assets and storage. | | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 14:38 - Aug 15 with 1775 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 14:13 - Aug 15 by Churchman |
The problem is that if you flog off all your assets, including buildings, your credit rating gets hit anyway.
An article with competing arguments from 7 years ago. It’s still relevant:
https://www.ciwem.org/the-envi
One quote from it from David Hall:-
‘after 25 years, water prices had risen by 40 per cent above the general rate of inflation, and the amount of shareholder money in the companies has reduced in real terms.
Despite acquiring the companies debt-free, the owners have accumulated debt of more than £50 billion, effectively used to finance dividends of over £50 billion. The annual cost of these dividends and interest on the debt is £2.3 billion a year more expensive than it would be under public ownership.
The companies’ performance has been equally poor. Sewage flooding remains a major problem, with repeated problems and fines. Thames Water has been a repeat offender, but the new super sewer being constructed to deal with the problem is another economic problem. As Thames refused to finance it by itself, the super sewer is financed by government loans and by an extra charge on consumers even before it is finished.‘ |
The amount of pollution is a national disgrace compared to much of Europe. As someone who enjoys watersports (not those ones!!), it saddens me there are so few places safe to do it. It’s all on our government and regulators in my view though. Some of the water companies are not-for-profit and still pumping out huge amounts of sewage.
The government needs to get tough sick of successive governments offering mealy mouthed ‘anger’, tighten up the regulations, and jail for those that breach them. Over to you ‘King pf the North’. | | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 16:11 - Aug 15 with 1642 views | Ryorry |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 14:38 - Aug 15 by SuperKieranMcKenna |
The amount of pollution is a national disgrace compared to much of Europe. As someone who enjoys watersports (not those ones!!), it saddens me there are so few places safe to do it. It’s all on our government and regulators in my view though. Some of the water companies are not-for-profit and still pumping out huge amounts of sewage.
The government needs to get tough sick of successive governments offering mealy mouthed ‘anger’, tighten up the regulations, and jail for those that breach them. Over to you ‘King pf the North’. |
Why so many tories were rooting for brexit - it was all about deregulation; shocking that so many voters were incapable of engaging all three of their braincells to foresee the very, very obvious. | |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 16:12 - Aug 15 with 1634 views | ITFC_Forever |
Rich get richer and the plebs stay in their place.
Exactly how they want it. |  |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 16:37 - Aug 15 with 1574 views | Swansea_Blue |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:15 - Aug 15 by You_Bloo_Right |
'No results found for "list some of the benefits of privatising water utility services - from a UK perspective.".' |
I got “significant initial infrastructure investments after the 1989 privatization”.
So something I suppose, although there’s no reason why that couldn’t have been payed for publicly. It seems the same with hospitals: some shiny new hospitals under Blair, but then we pay through the nose for them for decades.
There’s got to be better ways of funding major infrastructure without giving private companies an empty chequebook and almost free rein to cause environmental damage. |  |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 16:51 - Aug 15 with 1547 views | marshland |
Interesting how closely many of the posters political beliefs affect their judgement on privatisation reflecting the clear divisions on the issue by politicians and like them only mentioning the things favourable to their argument.
As a non political voter who tends to vote for the party with the most central polices my views. Firstly you can't lump all utilities together for the question as they work differently.
From a consumer viewpoint Utilities like Electricity and Telecoms that are capable of real competition seem to offer both a better service and lower prices while Utilities like Water where no real competition is possible seem to offer worse service and dearer prices.
To verify this just look at any price comparison site to see the differences.
Traditionally in my fairly long life the Government run Utilities were poor and very wasteful but who knows in modern days they may be improved although it was noticeable that most problems with the Railways were caused by Railtrack who are Govt run than by the privately owned rail Companies like Great Eastern and current large Govt run organisations like the NHS and armed forces procurement are not shining examples of efficiency and value for money.
There of course is the real worry with state owned utilities that a Chancellor strapped for cash ( any of the last 6) could easily tax them or just cut spending on them and so raise prices for us.
Then there is the moral and national security argument of allowing a private company ( often foreign owned) to control vital national assets and even allowing them to take money out of their provision.
I know the arguments and I am glad that I don't have to decide the answer but hopefully decisions will be made by rational assessments rather than Dogma from right or left, |  | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 17:56 - Aug 15 with 1480 views | Churchman |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 16:51 - Aug 15 by marshland |
Interesting how closely many of the posters political beliefs affect their judgement on privatisation reflecting the clear divisions on the issue by politicians and like them only mentioning the things favourable to their argument.
As a non political voter who tends to vote for the party with the most central polices my views. Firstly you can't lump all utilities together for the question as they work differently.
From a consumer viewpoint Utilities like Electricity and Telecoms that are capable of real competition seem to offer both a better service and lower prices while Utilities like Water where no real competition is possible seem to offer worse service and dearer prices.
To verify this just look at any price comparison site to see the differences.
Traditionally in my fairly long life the Government run Utilities were poor and very wasteful but who knows in modern days they may be improved although it was noticeable that most problems with the Railways were caused by Railtrack who are Govt run than by the privately owned rail Companies like Great Eastern and current large Govt run organisations like the NHS and armed forces procurement are not shining examples of efficiency and value for money.
There of course is the real worry with state owned utilities that a Chancellor strapped for cash ( any of the last 6) could easily tax them or just cut spending on them and so raise prices for us.
Then there is the moral and national security argument of allowing a private company ( often foreign owned) to control vital national assets and even allowing them to take money out of their provision.
I know the arguments and I am glad that I don't have to decide the answer but hopefully decisions will be made by rational assessments rather than Dogma from right or left, |
It really isn’t a right or left issue. It’s an issue of who controls what and how something is managed and for what reason. Nobody buys a water company for the good of the people. They are not there to provide a service. They are there to maximise profit for the benefit of shareholders. There lies the basic problem of flogging off utilities in particular.
Telecoms - future competition in that sector was clear even then and that privatisation didn’t worry me. Is it efficient? Well I can’t get a decent mobile signal in Waldringfield but I could at the top of a mountain in Colorado. I’ll leave that there.
Private/public initiatives can work well. They did in WW2. If the right controls are not in place disaster will follow. If you take PFI, supported by Labour and conservatives, the principle was sound. Instead of having huge spikes of capital spend to replace worn out schools and hospitals.
The idea was companies to pay upfront costs for public buildings in return for annual fees to cover building use, maintenance. You smoothed out costs.
The result was increased borrowing for exorbitant charges locked into badly written contracts, poor services and badly/cheaply built buildings since 1992 falling apart. A licence to print money for private companies and the tax payer gets the bill. All because the contracts were so ineptly written and the lesson that private companies only duty is to shareholder was forgotten. | | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 18:02 - Aug 15 with 1464 views | NthQldITFC |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 16:51 - Aug 15 by marshland |
Interesting how closely many of the posters political beliefs affect their judgement on privatisation reflecting the clear divisions on the issue by politicians and like them only mentioning the things favourable to their argument.
As a non political voter who tends to vote for the party with the most central polices my views. Firstly you can't lump all utilities together for the question as they work differently.
From a consumer viewpoint Utilities like Electricity and Telecoms that are capable of real competition seem to offer both a better service and lower prices while Utilities like Water where no real competition is possible seem to offer worse service and dearer prices.
To verify this just look at any price comparison site to see the differences.
Traditionally in my fairly long life the Government run Utilities were poor and very wasteful but who knows in modern days they may be improved although it was noticeable that most problems with the Railways were caused by Railtrack who are Govt run than by the privately owned rail Companies like Great Eastern and current large Govt run organisations like the NHS and armed forces procurement are not shining examples of efficiency and value for money.
There of course is the real worry with state owned utilities that a Chancellor strapped for cash ( any of the last 6) could easily tax them or just cut spending on them and so raise prices for us.
Then there is the moral and national security argument of allowing a private company ( often foreign owned) to control vital national assets and even allowing them to take money out of their provision.
I know the arguments and I am glad that I don't have to decide the answer but hopefully decisions will be made by rational assessments rather than Dogma from right or left, |
Pardon my ignorance, but why is Electricity any different to Water?
OK, so you can get bills from different companies in the same area, but the product is still supplied on the same infrastructure and from the same source. Any so-called competition here is surely only effectively price fixing. Dynamic price fixing, but an artificial price fixing nonetheless.
Telecomms almost the same? | |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 18:05 - Aug 15 with 1446 views | Joey_Joe_Joe_Junior |
I pay 10.3 cents per kWh and have lots of consumer choice, so I guess it geographically dependent. |  |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 18:09 - Aug 15 with 1427 views | armchaircritic59 |
As far as I'm concerned all essential " utilities " should be under one umbrella. I've no great complaint about privatisation per see, but not essential services and utilities. They are the last things anyone should be looking to line their pockets from. |  | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 18:23 - Aug 15 with 1392 views | Joey_Joe_Joe_Junior |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 18:09 - Aug 15 by armchaircritic59 |
As far as I'm concerned all essential " utilities " should be under one umbrella. I've no great complaint about privatisation per see, but not essential services and utilities. They are the last things anyone should be looking to line their pockets from. |
Sounds so simply and effective in theory!
What happens when the one umbrella sucks and is also run by incompetent people trying to line their pockets and is full of waste. | |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 18:24 - Aug 15 with 1387 views | positivity |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 18:23 - Aug 15 by Joey_Joe_Joe_Junior |
Sounds so simply and effective in theory!
What happens when the one umbrella sucks and is also run by incompetent people trying to line their pockets and is full of waste. |
this is the current situation in the uk
the money leaves the uk and the sewage waste is in our rivers and seas. nationalise asap! [Post edited 15 Aug 18:32]
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