Energy Companies

Since Labour have announced they will freeze energy prices until 2016 if they win the general election I have a few questions:-

How can you freeze a private companies prices? It is the same as insisted Nike only charge £30 for a pair of trainers and Tesco having to freeze the price of a loaf at 50p.

Also the energy infrastructure in this country is in desperate need of investment, this investment can only come from the private energy companies. These companies make huge profits yes, but they need to make a profit not only for their shareholders but also so they can invest in the UK energy infrastructure, employ staff to handle customer services calls and supply maintenance and of course with the profit they make pay taxes to the UK government.

If Labour has their way and they manage to force these private companies to freeze prices all that will happen is that they will make less money which in turn will mean less tax paid into the UK economy, and less investment in the UK energy infrastructure. In order to maintain the return on investment for their shareholders they will also shed jobs causing the state to pick up the tab through benefits for these newly unemployed individuals.

Since the announcement made by Labour of this planed policy one energy company has stated they will freeze energy prices until 2016, in the same announcement came 450 redundancies and a cut in their allocation of infrastructure spending.

This appears to be a very poorly laid out plan by Labour.

Please debate