IEA Chief Operating Officer and Energy Analyst Andy Mayer has written in CapX defending record profits posted by Centrica in February 2023.

Andy wrote:

“Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham describes this as ‘obscene’ and ‘rampaging energy profiteering’. Her words are echoed by Mel Evans of Greenpeace, who along with others is calling for a ‘proper windfall tax’. Some have also raised the recent story about a British Gas contractor’s unethical debt collection practices as evidence of Centrica’s malevolence and greed.

“Nor is this confined to the usual left-wing talking heads. Even people with broadly free market instincts are using terms like ‘price gouge’ to describe profits from market prices.

“This is all too typical of an era in which successive Conservative governments adopt Labour policies like price controls and windfall taxes in panicked reaction to the bad publicity. None of this is new, but it does show how badly the free market side of the debate is losing, and has been for 25 years – and that is both puzzling and dangerous if we want to keep the lights on.

“Fundamentally, capitalists believe the pursuit of profit is a ‘deeply moral’ enterprise. It is the return on risks taking with your own resources, generates new resources, and in doing so changes the world for the better.”

The full article can be read here.

Andy also argued against energy nationalisation on GB News. Watch here (1:40:31).