Reading the Metro today is seems that the Transport Minister Sadiq Khan has announced that the fines for over running roadworks will be increased from 2,500 pounds a day to 25,000 pounds a day, which notionally seems a good idea just as it did when he announced the same thing back in October.
One thing that the new announcement does tackle is the concern that “utility firms could use it as an excuse to put up domestic prices to compensate“, the cunning plan to stop this which can not possibly fail is …they won’t be allowed to do it. Because of course if the Government tells them not to pass on the costs they’ll just accept the lost profits and work harder to avoid the fines, there’s no chance they won’t just change prices for utterly unrelated reasons that happen to cover this increased overhead.
With a government so full of people skilled at fleecing the tax payer whilst working strictly within “the rules”, you’d have thought that they might at least suspect that merely forbidding something may not actually work. A more cynical person might in fact suspect that every time they forbid the passing on over regulatory costs they know damn well they’ll be covered in the next price hike. Though if one were that cynical one might also note that it’s a neat indirect route of pulling money out of our pockets without actually increasing taxes and with the added bonus of being able to blame those evil utility companies
