1980s Market Liberalisation
Under the Conservatives during the 1980s and 1990s, Government policy was one of market liberalisation linked to the privatisation of state controlled energy companies and the dismantling of the Department of Energy.
As a consequence, Government no longer has the ability to directly control the energy markets. Regulation is now carried out through the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (OFGEM), while energy policy is largely limited to influencing the operation of the market. Such influence is exerted through taxation (such as North Sea Oil Tax ), subsidy (such as the Renewables Obligation), incentives, planning controls, the underwriting of liabilities (such as those carried by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority), grants, and funding for research.
Read more about this topic: Energy Policy Of The United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the word market:
“When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country’s ready to let go. You heard of that market crash in ‘29? I predicted that.... I was nursing a director of General Motors. Kidney ailment, they said; nerves, I said. Then I asked myself, “What’s General Motors got to be nervous about?” “Overproduction,” I says. “Collapse.””
—John Michael Hayes (b. 1919)