Energy Crisis: Small to medium sized businesses will go under, including our pubs.

The Energy Crisis affects businesses since the price cap doesn't apply to them. We could lose 70% of pubs this winter. The price cap going up, our energy bills soaring, it’s a catastrophe in the making, but sadly it’s not the whole of the story for us. You see, the cap doesn’t apply to everyone, businesses for example do not benefit from the price cap, they’re at the total mercy of the energy corporations and some businesses are more vulnerable than others. Hospitality for example, restaurants, takeaways, pubs, hotels, they use more energy to cook food, to provide ambient surroundings, comfortable rest spaces that kind of thing. Let’s look at pubs as an example of small to medium sized businesses. Right now more than 70% of pubs in the UK don’t expect to survive winter and that’s not just because they’re being charged even more than we are as ordinary consumers for energy, but because of the way the energy companies are going after small businesses like them, chasing these vastly inflated bills. Out of concern for the viability of such businesses, instead of supporting and working with them to ensure they can survive, the energy companies seem to be opting for nihilism instead. In order to protect themselves, the energy companies are in many cases demanding businesses such as pubs pay up to £10,000 of their annual energy bill up front before they’ll even consider supplying them going forwards or are demanding even more inflated energy bills be paid instead. The likes of SSE, Scottish Power, E.ON and Ecotricity have all been accused of refusing service or demanding downpayments. Now right now this is pubs, but how long, as prices are estimated to keep on rising, before it’s hospitals being treated like this? Or schools, already now considering 3 day weeks through winter in order to manage their own costs? Right now the government remain asleep at the wheel whilst everything falls apart around us. I’ve used pubs as an example here, but we’re affected by all kinds of businesses and the knock on effects they feel get passed onto us through the prices we pay. Warehousing of, for example frozen, chilled or fresh goods will cost more, they require energy to store them safely. As prices rise for us as well as businesses we have less cash again to spend which harms the economy. The Tories love to crow about how pro-business they are, but their failure and repeated inaction shows they’re pro-corporation, not pro business.