Former Tory
leader urges need for compassion, saying it is unacceptable for poor to face
choice between heating and eating
The Guardian, Patrick Wintour, political editor, Tuesday 22 October 2013
 |
| Sir John Major said the Conservatives must represent the millions of 'silent have-nots locked into lace curtain poverty'. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian |
Sir John Major, the former Conservative prime minister, sent a political thunderbolt
into Downing Street by calling for a one-off windfall tax on the excess profits
of the energy companies to fund extra support for the millions of people he
said face a choice between eating or heating his homes this winter.
Asserting
his party must represent the millions of "silent have-nots locked into
lace curtain poverty", he described the profits of the energy companies as
unjustified and unacceptable.
In his
speech, at a press gallery lunch at Westminster, he urged his party to retain
its compassion and he made it clear he regards the coalition's response to
energy price rises as a test case for its wider political approach.
"Governments should exist to protect people, not institutions."
Major's
decision to get involved in one of the main current political battles came as
the leaders of the Big Six energy firms were called to give evidence to MPs
about the latest round of price increases next week. Major said: "We'll
probably have a very cold winter, and it is not acceptable to me, and ought not
to be acceptable to anyone that many people are going to have to choose between
keeping warm and eating. The private sector is something the Conservative party
supports, but when the private sector goes wrong, or behaves badly, I think
it's entirely right to make changes and put it right."
His remarks
were embraced by the Labour leader Ed Miliband who claimed Major had made his
argument that David Cameron has not been willing to stand up to the energy
companies.
Downing
Street, unprepared for the intervention by the normally loyal Major said the
former Conservative leader "has made an interesting contribution, but [the
government] has no plans to impose a windfall tax." It also denied there
was any need, at this stage, to consider extra help for the poor to cope with
their spiralling heating bills.
But Major
was unequivocal that the energy firms were profiteering saying: "I do not
see how it can be in any way acceptable that with energy prices rising broadly
4%, in terms of costs, that the price for the consumer should rise the 9 to
10%."
He also rejected
the energy companies argument that the profits were necessary for investment, a
case the big six energy companies will reiterate when they appear in front of
an emergency session of the energy select committee next Tuesday.
Major said:
" With interest rates at their present level, it's not beyond the wit of
man to do what companies have done since the dawn of time and borrow for their
investment rather than funding a large proportion of their investment out of
the revenue of families whose wages have not been going up at a time when other
costs have been rising".
In the only
respite for Cameron, Major said Labour's rival plan for a 20-month energy price
freeze was unworkable. Miliband's policy has dominated the political landscape
for five weeks, but Major dismissed his plan saying: "I think his heart
was in the right place but his head had gone walkabout."
Major said
his one-off windfall tax would be imposed retrospectively at the end of the
winter to fund extra help to those struggling with rising energy bills.
Those close
to Major denied that he was floating a policy on behalf of George Osborne,
pointing out that if the Treasury was planning such a measure, the chancellor
would not want to be seen to be forced into the move by a previous Tory leader.
Cameron's has so far responded to the wave of price rises by focusing on
creating more competition in the energy market, or urging consumers to seek
lower tariffs.
Many
coalition ministers have not accepted Major's premise that energy firms are
making excess profits, and have instead focussed on cutting green levies to
lower bills, something Major did not mention in his remarks.
But the
demand for a firm intervention from such an authoritative Tory source may well
sting Cameron into a big response of his own in the next few weeks.
Major's
move will also unsettle No 10 for its call for the party not to adopt a harsh
rightwing tone on welfare abuse or to obsess about Europe at the expense of the
cost-of-living crisis. "We Conservatives shouldn't be afraid to show that
we have a heart and a social conscience," Major said. "If we do we
might not only regain seats that are at present
no-go areas for Conservatives, but far more importantly, we might
transform lives as a result."
Recalling
his own modest roots, he warned it was "criminally easy" to overlook
the "silent citizens" because they do not "make a fuss, they
just get on with their lives".
"If
unemployed they seek work, if employed they work hard to hang on to their jobs.
And how do I know about these people?' Because I grew up with them. They were
my neighbours, the silent have-nots.
"They
are not high-fliers, not financially secure. They're the dignified poor or
near-poor and to the shame of decades of politicians – and I include myself in
this – there are still millions and millions of them.
"For
too many of these people a room with a view is 30 stories up and every day they
wake up hoping that the lift will work and that the graffiti on the walls won't
be too vile.
Sir Major
added: "If we Tories navel gaze and only pander to our comfort zone, we
will never win general elections. All the core delivers is the wooden
spoon". He also sent a blunt warning to the work and pensions secretary
Iain Duncan Smith not to obsess about welfare cheats.
He said he
wished Duncan Smith well in reforming benefits, but warned "unless he is
very lucky, which he may not be, or a genius, which last time I looked was
unproven, he may get some of it wrong".
He urged
Duncan Smith to listen to some of his critics, warning: "If he listens
only to the bean counters and cheerleaders concerned only with abuse of the
system then he will fail."
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