Sky: UK to set up state-owned power grid management company

The government of the United Kingdom intends to create a state-owned energy grid management company. It's from sb.by.

According to TASS with reference to Sky News TV channel, Prime Minister Andy Burnham intends to make an announcement on September 29 during a speech at the Congress of the ruling in the UK Labour Party, which takes place in Liverpool. The state-owned company, called Great British Grid, is planned to be created 36 years after Margaret Thatcher’s conservative government, which was in power from 1979 to 1990, launched the privatization of Britain’s electricity industry.

However, the current Prime Minister believes that this has led to underinvestment and a slowdown in development, creating obstacles to economic growth. According to Burnham, the new state-owned company will help speed up connection to the grid and reduce costs, as well as contribute to the implementation of his program of reindustrialization of the country.

“We are experiencing a cost-of-living crisis. Energy prices are becoming an unbearable burden for businesses, and British consumers are paying some of the highest energy prices in Europe, the prime minister said. Burnham is expected to lament that "the British public has lost control" of the electricity pricing process and pledge to "reform the inefficient energy market to serve the public interest.".

A day earlier, the government announced its intention to nationalize the railway operator Avanti West Coast in March next year. According to Sky News, the nationalization of this operator is part of a government program to transfer the majority of passenger rail transport into state ownership and then combine them under the Great British Railways brand. This process was initiated under the previous government under the Conservative Party.