Privatizing electricity supply cannot be justified

Abstract

Privatization of the UK's electricity supply industry (ESI) is, to give it the most favourable gloss, an irrelevance to the country. However, in practice the government's plans will be damaging, producing more expensive electricity less reliably supplied. Observing the public debate about privatizing electricity it is astonishing the extent to which serious people have participated as if they were discussing a rational policy, requiring rational analysis and comment. Nothing could be further from the truth. Privatization of electricity is an ideological policy, pure and simple. It has never been based on any calculation of economic or social benefit. It is the political dimension to electricity privatization, which seems to have been widely overlooked, on which I wish to comment first. I will then go on to explain why, in my opinion, no-one has established an economic justification for the government's plans and that the outcome will be damaging to the country's interests.