Reader slams energy companies for ‘bleeding customers dry' - Your Letters and when December snow brought festive scenes to Bradshaws nurseries in 2017

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Our bills feed shareholders

Here we go again, Ofgem gives the go ahead for energy companies to increase energy bills following a £28 billion increase for upgrades. Over the years these companies when they have increase household bills have said " it is to improve and increase infrastructure, make bills cheaper for the customers." So if this is the case, just what have they been doing with the money, if they now need £28 billion for upgrades they have supposedly already been collecting for over the years? Now our bills will increase by £108 a year after Rachel Reeves said they would come down by £150. We only make a £42 saving – whoopee dodo.

I suggest instead of all these savings over all the years going to the shareholders, do what they said they had been doing and plough all the rises we have been paying into the building of a better service and infrastructure. These companies are only interested in making money and care not a jot about customer welfare or our worries of costs and this £28 billion will just go where all the other billions have gone - shareholders pockets!

Pete Lowe, Midlands

I have never trusted the OBR

So the Office for Budget Responsibility’s chairman has fell on his sword. He won’t be the first or the last. The OBR was started by George Osbourne and David Cameron in the year 2010. It is supposed to be independent.