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Nationalising energy firms will leave Brits 'paying off' shareholders, says Starmer
17 August 2022, 19:49 | Updated: 17 August 2022, 19:52
Starmer says why he doesn't support nationalising energy companies
The Labour leader says nationalising energy companies would mean less money would be directed to Brits struggling to pay their bills.
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Labour outlined their cost of living plan this week aiming to put a stop to surging inflation and help ordinary Brits pay their bills this winter.
Speaking to Ben Kentish, Sir Keir Starmer outlined the plan.
Ben noted that Gordon Brown called his week for energy companies to be nationalised amid the energy crisis.
"What part of his plan did you think was the wrong approach?" He asked the Labour leader.
Sir Keir stood firm: "We had a basic choice to make, which is do we use the money that we will put behind this to reduce those prices, those bills, or do we use it for other things?"
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"Every single penny should go to reducing the price of household bills by freezing them.
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"If you go down the nationalisation route, that means using money to pay shareholders, because nationalisation doesn't come for free."
He went on to argue that if faced with the choice, Brits would decide against nationalising energy firms.
"If I made an announcement this week to millions of households and say the way I'm going to deal with this this winter is to pay money to shareholders...but not do anything to reduce your bill, they would have said to me: 'Keir, you don't recognise the extent to which we're struggling with our bills'."
"Every single penny of our scheme should go to reducing bills, not paying off shareholders through nationalisation."
