UK energy company bosses are accused of astonishing neglect by MPs as they defend their response to the storms over the Christmas period, that left thousands of homes without power.
Energy committee chairman Tim Yeo was critical of network company chiefs for failing to show “any expression of real concern” as they blamed wind speeds and the scale of the operation for poor response times.
The senior industry figures were told they showed “utter complacency” and were “exploiting” their privileged market monopoly during the energy select committee grilling.
MPs heard that “tried and tested” emergency plans were defeated by the severity of the storms and companies were unable to help each other because they were all stretched to the limits.
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But Mr Yeo attacked at the six-strong panel for failing to take the problems faced by their customers seriously enough.
“You have lacked any expression of real concern for your customers,” he said. “It’s absolutely typical of a monopoly, particularly monopolies whose charges are not very visible to the customers who have to pay them.”
More than 150,000 homes were cut off after strong winds, torrential rain and flooding caused damage to power networks, with many left without electricity for up to five days.
Mark Mathieson, managing director of SSE’s electricity networks, insisted that clean-up operations were much quicker now than in the past and said the company had gone the “extra mile”.
He told MPs: “We as an industry clean these events up much quicker than we used to. But we also recognise the impact that has on customers.
“We are sorry and I did go out to communicate with customers that we were sorry that they were off.”
Basil Scarsella, chief executive of UK Power Networks, said the organisation knew that storms were coming but the wind speed was higher than they had expected.
“But notwithstanding that, we managed on the Monday when it hit to have all our workforce pretty much on deck and our estimation of the damage was pretty accurate.”
The explanations did little to convince the committee that the energy companies were putting customers first.
Mr Yeo said: “I’ve heard nothing at all this morning which reassures me that you are taking this problem seriously enough to deal with the concerns of millions of your customers.
“There is no sense of urgency in what you said about any plans to step up your capacity to respond to severe weather even though we now have quite clear warnings that extreme events are likely to take place more frequently in future.”
He continued: “I have to conclude that you are exploiting your privileged monopoly position and you have displayed a neglect of your customers which I personally find absolutely astonishing.”