Letters: Energy firms should at least be honest about why they want to impose smart meters

SIR – Can energy bosses such as Chris O’Shea of British Gas stop pretending that net zero is the primary consideration when they argue for making smart meters mandatory (report, May 9)?

The reason they want households to have them is that it will save them money on meter readers and bill chasers – just as supermarkets installed self-service checkouts to save money on staff but pretended that it was what their customers wanted.

Victor Launert
Matlock Bath, Derbyshire

SIR – I struggle to understand how smart meters will help with meeting net-zero targets.

We live out in the country, where our only energy is electricity, and have maximised the insulation of our house, inside and outside. We have a heat pump (which we love) and a smart meter, the monitor for which is gathering dust in the plant room. The meter does nothing for us, but it gives the electricity supplier the ability to bill us promptly and keep increasing our payments to reflect any rise in our usage. Unsurprisingly the charge never seems to go down when we are more economical.

Stephen Cupit
Datchworth, Hertfordshire

SIR – My recent experience with EDF’s smart meter, which resulted in a demand for a £5,000 back payment – eventually overturned by the ombudsman after a trying and tortuous fight – indicates not only that the meters are prone to faults, but also that the back-up infrastructure is woefully substandard. If problems occur they can be inordinately difficult to sort out.

Stick with what works.

David Burton
Dorking, Surrey

SIR – For the past five years I have been regularly requesting a smart meter to be installed for my gas supply, via emails and the British Gas website. However, I am always told they are not available. Perhaps the boss is unaware of his company’s reluctance to install these devices.

John Piggott
Pulborough, West Sussex

SIR – My house and every other house I have visited already possess smart meters. We call them switches.

David Stolworthy
Hornchurch, Essex

Labour’s border plan

SIR – Labour plans, if elected, to create a new border force to control illegal immigration, and to scrap the Rwanda scheme (report, May 10).

Why does everyone keep ignoring the elephant in the room – France? If the French had a more robust team hunting down traffickers and dealing with migrants entering their country – which is their job, after all – then very few, if any, would be able to cross the Channel.

A J C Gorman
Ickenham, Middlesex

SIR – I am astonished that MI5 is not already identifying the criminal gangs behind the small boats. I thought this was the kind of thing it was for.

Andrew Dyke
London N21

SIR – I don’t know how much Huw Pill, the Bank of England’s chief economist, is paid, but most of us didn’t need him to tell us that high levels of immigration are worsening our housing crisis (report, May 10).

It is obvious that, by resolving the immigration issue, we could address the housing issue – yet there seems to be no party or politician with the plan, know-how or will to do it.

Rob Mason
Nailsea, Somerset

SIR – Michael McGough (Letters, May 10) asks how many more Tory defections it will take before a general election is called.

In 1997, John Major held on until almost the last possible moment before calling the election, in the misguided belief that an improving economy would save the Tories. But voters had simply had enough then, and they have had enough now. 
The sooner we are rid of this rotten, incompetent Conservative Government, the sooner we will be rid of the rotten, incompetent Labour government that will replace it.

David Miller
Chigwell, Essex

Gibraltar’s sovereignty

SIR – I read with some consternation your report (May 10), “Gibraltar deal would ‘render Britain’s sovereignty meaningless’.” The suggestion from the European Scrutiny Committee that I or any Gibraltarian chief minister or politician would sign up to terms that would weaken our sovereignty, control or jurisdiction over a single inch of the Rock is abhorrent to me and to all Gibraltarians.

Were I to agree to even a hint of that, my Cabinet and I would not survive walking even a single imperial yard down Main Street, Gibraltar.

I understand Parliament’s anxiety to know the terms and implications of any UK-EU agreement for Gibraltar that is reached. They will be satisfied.

I can assure all your readers that Lord Cameron and I are working in lock step to secure the arrangements needed for the economy and well-being of Gibraltar and its surrounding region to flourish.

Gibraltarians are the most dedicated and experienced guardians of Gibraltar’s British, British, British sovereignty. And to anyone who tries to take that from us, my response has already been declared to the United Nations: “No way José!”

Fabian Picardo
Chief Minister of Gibraltar

Battling for a GP slot

SIR – Our local GP practice, like that of James Woods (Letters, May 10), has switched to an online request system. This was sold as an efficient way of prioritising appointments for those in most need – so when my 85-year-old mother was suffering from a red, swollen and painful leg, with a discharging wound, I trusted she would be near the top of the list.

After I had completed a labyrinthine form on her behalf and submitted a photo, we waited seven hours to be notified that we would be contacted for a telephone appointment. This took place two hours later; we were informed that “it doesn’t look infected”, but told to “get back in touch” if it worsened. An appointment was made for my mother to see the practice nursing team three days later.

Within 10 hours I was completing the same form again, adding that my mother now felt worse and reiterating concerns about a probable infection. This time we were contacted within a few hours and given a face-to-face appointment at which antibiotics were issued immediately.

As the GP practice can nevertheless argue that my mother was given a same-day appointment for her condition, it seems to me that the online request system is more to the benefit of surgeries than their patients.

Andrew Davis
Purley, Surrey

SIR – Chris Thomas (Letters, May 3) asks if he is lucky in having a good local hospital Trust. Many of us would say so. I know someone who has been suffering acute hip and leg pain – not just for months, but years. They can no longer walk, and barely sleep.

Finally, two months ago, after constant struggles to get help, they were given a date for the local musculoskeletal clinic – in September. The appointment is a telephone one. The accompanying instruction reads: “Do not attend.”

Lilian Hulse
Bournemouth, Dorset

Online safety

SIR – The simplest way of protecting children online is to ensure – as Jonathan Haidt suggests in his book The Anxious Generation – that they are not allowed to possess or use smartphones until the age of 14, and are not allowed any access to social media sites until they are 16.

Nothing proposed by the social media companies is likely to work, as one of their goals appears to be to hook children at as young an age as possible and keep them on their smartphones for as long as possible.

The Government needs to be extremely firm on this issue, as social media and smartphone use has already damaged the first generation whose childhood was based on these things rather than active play.

Ian Brent-Smith
Bicester, Oxfordshire

The best bread

SIR – Andrew Pyne, from the Federation of Bakers (Letters, May 10), may well be correct that a supermarket white sliced loaf contains a wealth of nutrients.

However, a glance at the label of one such loaf in a well-known grocer shows 16 different ingredients, including such delights as mono- and diacetyl tartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides of fatty acid, spirit vinegar and ascorbic acid.
On reflection, I think I will stick with the flour, water, yeast and pinch of salt from which I make my bread. Half the price, too.

Nick Serpell
Beaminster, Dorset

Rise and shave

SIR – Like Tim Oldfield (Letters, May 10), I enjoy the ritual of my early-morning shave. I listen to the wireless, as my father did.

I agree about the ridiculous cost of razor blades, but have found that the ones from Lidl are excellent and inexpensive – £3.89 for four. German technology at its finest.

John M Scott
Aspley Guise, Bedfordshire

SIR – I, like Tim Oldfield, prefer a wet shave, and agree with him about the astronomical price of razor blades.

He could save a fortune, however, if he used a traditional straight razor. The only “cost” is a little more time out of the day, as this method requires more care than a modern razor.

William Muir
Prestwick, Ayrshire

SIR – The problem for men who shave is that they get associated gifts for Christmas and birthdays. Those who don’t shave get more diverse and interesting ones.

Robert Ward
Loughborough, Leicestershire

There’s more than one way to use a chessboard

SIR – The “chess” tables in parks (“I sat at a £2.5k levelling-up chess table and no one wanted to play”, Features, May 10) have been an expensive investment, so let’s not fixate on one game alone.

Anyone can get a boatload of fun from playing draughts on the same board – as well as a number of other games, many of which can be enjoyed by all of the generations together.

Rosie Harden-Vane
Holywell, Northumberland

Of food and finance

SIR – Many years ago, I felt that my bank was overcharging my business.

I prepared a long handwritten list of the fees and went to see the manager (Letters, May 10). After listening to me for about a minute, he interrupted. “Luke”, he said, “I think it’s time for lunch.”

The charges remained the same.

Luke Grant
Pensax Common, Worcestershire

SIR – In the 1960s a friend of mine received a letter from his bank manager.

Deploring the way he was handling his finances, the manager asked to revert to normal practice, whereby “you bank with us rather than we bank with you”.

Simon McIlroy
Croydon, Surrey

SIR – My father was the financial director of a family company in north London in the early 1980s. He conducted the company’s business through a branch of the Midland Bank close to his office.

He died in the Hammersmith Hospital shortly before noon on a Tuesday, and I informed his employer of his death a couple of hours later.

My mother received a touching letter of condolence from the manager of the branch in the next morning’s post. 
She never forgot that kind and immediate response at a time of such painful loss.

Ian R Lowry
Reading, Berkshire

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