The Benefits of Having a Publicly Owned Energy Company

The state backed energy company would be no less efficient in the way it was run than a private energy company. And so you would have other suppliers in the market, but that publicly owned company would be providing a bit of ballast. Because it didn't have to return dividends to shareholders, it could presumably be competitive on price and offer cheaper prices perhaps than the private energy companies. Exactly. So we see that if you look across Europe, there's been a study comparing electricity costs, and that found that public system ownership is associated with prices that are 20 to 30% lower than private ownership. It's worth noting, isn't it, that with our privatised system, it is clearly regulated