A former boss of BP has said the latest energy price cap should be suspended. Former vice president Nick Butler also called for increased taxes on oil producers.
Mr Butler, who worked for BP for more than three decades, said he did not think the Ofgem cap should have been announced with no "modification or mitigation". The price cap is set to increase by 80%, taking the average household bill to £3,549 from October.
Speaking to BBC Scotland’s The Seven, Mr Butler said: “They are going to have to put a lot of money to cover the costs of this so that they don’t fall on ordinary people.” He added that he would like to see a cost breakdown of every company in the industry to see if increases were justifiable.
He said: “I don’t think the cost of producing nuclear or renewable have risen in any way comparable to the increases in natural gas. The Government, with the companies, should be making sure we have proper supplies for the winter and putting in some storage. Storage is a way to protect our consumers against volatility.”
He was asked if energy producers such as BP should face a tax hike, to which Mr Butler said: “Yes – if they can’t show they are facing real costs in bringing the supplies in. If those costs are genuine, and in some cases I think they are, then they are not making windfall profits.
“But other people I think are milking the system and that’s why I absolutely believe this has got to be made a transparent market, and the good companies will welcome that transparency because it will restore an element of the trust that has been lost.”
