Letters / GB Oils is making you pay
Please permit me to address Mr Chambers, chair of GB Oils (‘GB Oils defend isles’ fuel prices’, SN, 20 March) directly.
Dear Mr Chambers,
You are quoted as saying: “You are paying for remoteness, you are paying for the small volume that is going through.”
Yes, Mr Chambers, we are paying for it, but who is charging us extra for “remoteness” and “small volume”? You are. It might have been just a little more honest if you’d said: “GB Oils is making you pay.”
Rising fuel prices are affecting everybody, but have hit remote communities particularly hard, with an unacceptably high percentage of the Shetland population now living in fuel poverty; for some families this means living in actual poverty, or below the poverty line.
I don’t know if you live in fuel poverty yourself; in case you don’t, please allow me to illustrate what this can bring with it: no longer being able to afford an annual holiday, attend events that charge entrance fees, replace worn appliances, furniture etc., buying new clothes and shoes and other such “luxuries”, because fuel bills have made devastating inroads into household budgets.
Families are reduced to using their central heating during particularly cold spells only, or can only afford to heat one or two rooms. As a result, temperatures in an increasing number of households are below those recommended by the NHS as essential for preserving health and preventing illness associated with too low temperatures. I also know of individuals on low incomes who have had to reduce their car use to a strictly essential level, leaving them socially isolated.
Profiteering is such a harsh, ugly word, but I couldn’t help noticing that your company did pretty well out of ever-increasing oil prices, with profits rising from £1,235 million in 2005 to £27,635 million in 2009 or 2011*
GB Oils highest paid director earned £760.000* during the tax year ending March 2011. For all I know, this might be you. It would take a family on a £30.000 income a quarter of a century to earn such a sum. Has this put it into perspective for you?
At this stage, Mr Chambers, I’d like to introduce you to a term you may or may not be familiar with: social conscience. Exercising it can be highly rewarding (not necessarily in monetary terms), but takes courage, imagination and empathy.
What would you say to relinquishing those 4.24 pence per litre of diesel, and other profits GB Oils makes in Shetland? You could follow the example of some small mail-order companies which have ceased to pass on “remote area” carriage charges to keep their small Shetland customer base happy.
Once you get used to the idea of exercising your social conscience, you may stretch to making a small loss on your remote area operations (2 per cent of sales volume), to bring fuel prices in Shetland a little closer to those charged on the Scottish mainland.
Perhaps you would like to suggest a pay freeze, or even a small pay cut, for yourself and your 19 fellow directors? This might go a small way towards making up the loss. You would suffer little hardship as a result, as George Osborne has just handed you a generous present in the form of a 10 per cent tax cut.
I trust you’ll raise this at your next board meeting.
Yours faithfully,
Rosa Steppanova
Tresta
* I have encountered some difficulty finding relevant information on GB Oils on the internet and the figures quoted might not be completely accurate
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