British Gas owner Centrica's skyrocketing profits have been branded 'indefensible' as UK households continue to encounter high energy bills and cost of living pressures.
The energy giant revealed that earnings at its retail supplier business soared by almost 900 per cent as it was handed a price cap boost of about £500 million.
Centrica said underlying earnings at its gas and electricity supply arm jumped 889 per cent to £969 million in the six months to June 30 from £98 million a year earlier.
But enraged politicians described the profits as 'actually sickening' and 'unearned', while campaigners said it was a 'future sign of Britain's broken energy system'.
Shareholders were celebrating though, with Centrica's stock price up 7 per cent after the firm proposed a 33 per cent annual increase in its interim dividend.
It comes four months after Centrica chief executives Chris O'Shea was given a £4.49 million pay package, which included £790,000 in pay plus £3.7 million in bonuses.
And that followed accusations that agents working for British Gas had forced their way into the homes of the poor and vulnerable to fit costly pre-payment meters.
Centrica said that it recouped £500 million of losses seen a year earlier after it was buoyed by Ofgem's price cap in the first half of this year when customers saw their typical annual bills limited to £2,500 under the Energy Price Guarantee.
Overall, Centrica swung to a £6.5 billion operating profit in the first six months of 2023 against operating losses of £1.1 billion a year earlier. On an underlying basis, operating profits increased to £2.1 billion from £1.3 billion a year ago.
Energy firms saw their supplier profit margins hit last year when wholesale prices were sent soaring by Russia's attack on Ukraine, but the price cap protected customers' bills from the worst of the rises.
Ed Miliband, Labour's shadow net zero secretary, told BBC Breakfast that what most people will recognise is good luck to these companies if they make profits, but these are unearned, unexpected profits.
The secretary said this was because Russia launched an appalling invasion of Ukraine and drove gas prices up, and the only long-term answer to this was to move off fossil fuels as quickly as they can because even though they imported very small amounts from Russia before the war, they've been so badly affected as a country.
It was added that was why the drive to increase onshore wind, solar energy, and offshore wind, cheaper than fossil fuels, was the right answer for the country, and the regret was not just that they don't have a proper windfall tax, they don't have a Government committed to that green sprint either.
The fact is, we don't have a cost of living crisis, we have a greed crisis.
This is theft and British Gas is involved in daylight robbery.
I suppose that's the nature of capitalism. Maximise profits and growth by any means necessary. This isn't an endorsement of communism but our present economic models only benefit the mega-rich, while the average person struggles to attain the basics in life, where does it end?
And it appears that now companies can act with impunity and charge what they want and there's nothing anyone can or will do - it's a gravy train, and what will Brits do about it, nothing! They'll just whine about it, emit a few tut-tuts and sit back and take it.
Margaret Thatcher and the Tories sold off all our utilities to the highest bidder. Whoever thought this was going to end well needed their head testing.
This is a deliberate transfer of wealth because once the elites have destroyed the middle class, then all that's left are the obscenely wealthy despots and the extremely poor who are desperate - is this a coincidence, well that's for the masses to determine.
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