Letter regarding energy

Sir/madam,

One of the huge anomalies of the Western Isles currently is the fact that we have huge renewable energy potential and yet we have the highest levels of fuel poverty in Western Europe. The three oft-talked about reasons for fuel poverty are the inefficiency of houses, low incomes and the energy prices.

The Outer Hebrides Energy Supply Company (Hebrides Energy)has been formed with the aim to offer a bespoke community electricity tariff for households and business customers in the Outer Hebrides directly impacting on fuel poverty.

However, the council administration, at the last series of meetings, proposed to allow responsibility for setting the base tariff to a private company. In view of the fact that a private company's motives, as it is constituted to do so, is to maximize profit for shareholders, I, seconded by councillor Rae Mackenzie put forward an amendment that the responsibility of setting the price should be under Hebrides Energy. This would ensure that the base tariff would be set with consideration to the people of the islands and their circumstances firstly. We believe that the ESCo should be designed to maximize the benefit to every household of the renewable energy potential first and foremost.

Sadly, the decision for abdicating responsibility of the price to the private company which was proposed by Councillor Alasdair Macleod and seconded by councillor Donald Crichton gained support from the majority of councillors whereas I am grateful to the SNP council group for voting for my amendment.

I find it unfortunate that islanders will have a higher price of electricity as the private company adds its margin when fuel poverty is causing such distress to 71% of households across the islands and that this administration failed to take the price setting into public control.

I, along with the Western Isles SNP group, will continue to battle for the people of the islands and to ensure that our God-given resources are used for the benefit of all islanders,

Yours,
Councillor Gordon Murray

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