Articles by Editor,Ruth Sunderland

Technology

Fresh wave of energy companies could collapse this winter, warns boss of British Gas owner Centrica

Britain's top energy boss has this weekend issued a stark warning that a fresh wave of gas and electricity suppliers could collapse this winter. In an exclusive interview with the Mail on Sunday, Chris O'Shea, the chief executive of British Gas parent company Centrica, says he is 'very worried' of a repeat of the energy market mayhem of 2021 and 2022, when a string of firms went bust. Bailing out the failed suppliers back then cost consumers £80 extra per household on energy bills. The Centrica chief said he repeatedly warned watchdog Ofgem of the impending failures at that time but was ignored. He fears at least one small supplier is at risk of going to the wall 'imminently.' In the aftermath of the previous crisis, regulator Ofgem introduced financial resilience tests and capital targets. These are meant to ensure providers have enough of a buffer to cope with volatile energy markets, so customers do not have to pick up the tab for future bailouts. Ofgem has not publicly named companies that do not meet one or both of its new criteria. However, auditors at Ovo, one of the 'Big Six' suppliers. recently raised a red flag in its accounts over whether it is able to continue as a going concern. O'Shea fears Ofgem has allowed the risks of another meltdown to build, despite having taken on large numbers of new staff and being handed a big increase in its budget. 'How can they have been taking so many extra staff, and seen their budget go up so much and they're still making the same mistakes they did three or four years ago?' he said. 'There is a real risk it is happening again.' 'I don't want to say how worried I am on a scale from one to ten but I am very worried. I am worried enough to be, you know, making a point.' 'I warned about this in the past and now I just see the same thing happening again. I just think it's a crying shame and customers deserve better.' Ofgem's permanent staff has doubled from just over 1,000 people in 2020/21 to more than 2,000. Its annual budget has soared from £131m to £290m over that period. In 2021 and 2022 a number of suppliers went bust because they did not have sufficient capital to withstand the surge in energy prices caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 'There was a failure of regulation and consumers picked up the tab,' O'Shea said. 'I wrote to the regulator three times before the energy market imploded telling them I was very concerned some suppliers were going to collapse. The regulator did not act on that. Did I get any response? No.' 'It is a systemic risk to the energy retail market if companies are undercapitalised and you allow them to take on more customers.' O'Shea welcomed the measures Ofgem has put in place but said it is not clear how effectively these are being applied. He wants Ofgem to name publicly the companies that do not meet all its rules and targets. In addition, he wants the watchdog to forbid them from taking on new customers and to force all firms to 'ring-fence' credit balances. Centrica ring-fences customers' cash and meets all the targets. Octopus, the biggest supplier, is understood to meet the financial resilience rules and to have agreed a plan with Ofgem to meet the capital targets. Ovo has agreed a plan to fulfil its requirements. Industry body Energy UK last week savaged Ofgem for pushing up prices for the customers it is supposed to protect and called on Labour to dismantle the organisation. A spokesman for Ofgem said its staff and budget have grown along with its expanded role and responsibilities and that consumer satisfaction 'has recently improved to record highs.' 'Suppliers now hold around £7.5billion in assets compared with heavy debts during the crisis.' O'Shea said: 'The energy market should be regulated like banks. The idea that a bank with inadequate capital would be out in the market and the regulators wouldn't be telling people, it's just for the birds,' he said.

Technology

RUTH SUNDERLAND: A costly war is being waged on women

We live in an increasingly divided, fearful and hostile world. One of those rifts is being created by misogyny, and it will hurt us all – men as well as women – if we are not careful. The threat is all the greater because it is habitually minimised or totally overlooked. A failure to make the most of female talent means that, at a minimum, we are leaving economic growth on the table and missing out on innovation at a moment we can ill-afford it. I recently appeared on a panel to discuss the 'rifts and shifts' facing the world, where historian Dr Martin Farr of Newcastle University specifically raised misogyny as a core geopolitical theme. He is right. It belongs in the same conversation as populism, war, meeting future energy needs and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). Misogyny is a toxic thread in a cat's cradle of uncertainties. Many of the seeming bedrocks on which we built our lives have been jolted. A combination of Donald Trump, Covid-19, AI, Vladimir Putin and Andrew Tate has shaken the old order. Free trade, progress against disease, faith in human reason and the equality of women: all were once seen as secure and all are under strain. So too is democracy. Only about 6 per cent of the world's population live in full democracies, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, and some 5.8billion people live under autocratic rule. A sobering point. As is the finding of a UN report last year that nearly one in four governments presided over a backlash on women's rights. Did you know that? Nor did I. And that is the core of the problem. This is moral injustice wrapped up in an economic threat. Even the UK, where women enjoy unprecedented opportunities, balancing work with family life is exhausting. Nobel Prize-winning economist Claudia Goldin warns that treating this as a purely personal issue ignores the long history of discrimination and the fragility of progress. The emerging cult of the 'strong man' leader – and the macho language that surrounds it – is accompanied by open antagonism to women, embodied in figures such as social media personality Andrew Tate. Economic shifts, exploited by populist politicians, have deprived some men in former manufacturing communities of the jobs they once had, leaving them adrift. Their plight is real, but blaming 'career women' for their loss is as lazy as it is wrong. The flipside is fashionable nostalgia for the 'trad-wife', the woman who rejects the workplace for cupcakes and childcare. Yet women surrender economic independence at their peril. For every happy homemaker supported by a responsible (and rich) husband, plenty of others are left in the lurch. To most women in the world, earnest discussions over the small number of female FTSE 100 chief executives or posts on Mumsnet over middle-class dads not doing enough child-care must seem indulgent chatter. Still, we squander vast reserves of potential by failing to promote women on merit and by starving female entrepreneurs of growth capital. It's a shame for the cause of women that our first female Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has been such a disappointment to so many voters, though hardly an indictment of her entire sex. We need to raise the level of debate, or we will all be losers in an insidious war against women.