1.5 million customers. bulb is the biggest - green energy company. it was the biggest energy company to go bust. last november, bulb found itself in administration. it was only kept going by the government, who pumped hundreds of millions of pounds into the business, but now a deal has been struck that it is hoped will give relief notjust to customers, taxpayers but also hundreds of staff. today, octopus were confident that the takeover of bulb s customers would be smooth. octopus has got a great track record of bringing large numbers of customers across. so for, example, when avro failed it was the largest company to date we were able to look after those customers and staff pretty seamlessly, and i think with bulb, the experience we ve got means we re probably the natural choice. in total, 1.5 million bulb customers will move across to octopus. last november, the government had to bail out the firm with a £1.7 billion loan. but earlier this year, the independent office for budget
assets sitting behind them. so they were never going to go bust. they have a cash problem. that has caused real headaches and has caused sale of assets at a low price and so on, but over the last ten days a lot of work has been going on, so they are in a much stronger position today. many of these pension schemes have got quite big employers standing behind them. if you work for a supermarket, it is the supermarket pension scheme and if the supermarket is asked for extra money, a loan or contributions to the pension scheme, that can help tide things over. ironically, those traditional pensions are quite safe. the people i am most concerned about are the people who have hardly been talked about who have modern pot of money pensions, millions have been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension which is linked to the stock market, which has gone down. some of these folk have lost 30% of their life savings and have had almost no attention in this conversation. had almost no attentio
investment. that s no longerl going to happen. and i hope they ll go further. i hope i ve said before bring that 1% reduction . in income tax that rishi sunak talked about doing before the next election. do it now. we need the help right now. and, of course, more help. there is more help i that s needed as well. so, this government is doing absolutely the right things. i i wonder how bleak, bluntly, you think things are right now, economically? if ten is as bad as it gets and one is brilliant, how bad are things? things are really very, very bad. i businesses are struggling in a big way, particularly. small and medium sized enterprises are struggling j in a huge way. and that s why the help i for businesses, in terms of the energy reduction which will be an averagel reduction of about 40% for a lot of businesses. | most businesses have - seen their energy costs go up by a minimum of 300%. that s not viable. and businesses were going to go bust. - and so that move, the energy he
to a lot over the course of the last couple of days. you go energy package aside, how else is this going to help me? i m in really desperate need right now. i m struggling to keep my head above water. and the idea of corporation tax cuts and national insurance cuts won t have a huge impact. the idea of growth in the longer term. i need something right now or else i m going to go bust. you re absolutely right, - which is why what we ve been saying is you ve got to go further. - in the pandemic, if- you remember, you had business rates holidays. if you remember, you were able to delay your vat payments, . you were able to delay your tax payments to just help your cash flow. we had vat reduced at one stage to 5% for hospitality, then it went up to 12.5%. those are the things we still need. - the government needs to do those sort of things. - business rates relief, - reducing vat temporarily to help the hospitalityl industry, for example. fuel our fuel duties are the highest in the w
we need the help right now. and, of course, more help. there is more help i that s needed as well. so this government is doing absolutely the right things. | i wonder how bleak, bluntly, you think things are right now, economically? if ten is as bad as it gets and one is brilliant, how bad are things? things are really very, very bad. businesses are struggling in a big way, particularly small and medium sized enterprises are struggling in a huge way. i and that s why the help i for businesses, in terms of the energy reduction, which will be an average reduction of about 40% for a lot of businesses. | most businesses have - seen their energy costs go up by a minimum of 300%. that s not viable. and businesses were going to go bust. - and so that move, the energy help for businesses, - on top of the energy help for consumers, was - absolutely essential. so it s very bad. we are looking at a recession. many people say the recession has already started. well, the bank of england said tod