Many people are receiving letters informing them of huge increases to their household gas and electric bills. Some increasing by around £1,000, which only a couple of years ago would have been unbelievable.

The Government shows little to no empathy for bill payers and have instead offered to lend us the money to help with our bills (whether we want it or not) to be paid back over the next 5 years. Yet this falls drastically short of what’s needed to make sure that everyone affected, and indeed those who are most in need of help, are able to absorb the increases.

Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi, the current Secretary of State for Education and former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Industry recently defended the North Sea oil and gas producers labelling them as “struggling.” Its a particularly odd word to use when just two of the biggest producers in the North Sea, BP and Shell are set to make combined record profits of £40 billion this year. It’s an obscene amount of money, Im sure that many working people up and down the country will have sleepless nights wondering how they can afford their bills.

No longer can we sit idly by and watch the oil companies rake it in while our elderly struggle to heat their homes. It really is no wonder people are planning to show defiance and refuse to pay. Indeed many genuinely wont be able to.

This Government are far too busy listening to the fuel producers and big business than they are listening to ordinary citizens who in the end, pay the price of the failures of government.

Ryan Quick