10 Downing Street Update For Monday
Hi everyone,
I hope you've all had a good week and are looking forward to a festive weekend! Just wanted to post a quick update for Monday's visit to 10 Downing Street.
Firstly, thank you to everyone that has emailed their local MP in the last 24 hours, I've seen 100s go through! If you haven't done so yet, please do try to email your local MP tonight or over the weekend, i'll put the instructions and email text at the bottom of this update.
Secondly, if you haven't received a response by Monday from your local MP, it would be great if you could call them on Monday around midday and ask if they have availability in their calendar to attend 10 Downing Street and support us, that would be great!
Finally, please do post the following tweet online on Monday at any time, we're looking to gain attention for the petition by making it trend!
@RichardWinstone is handing in a 220,000 strong petition to 10 Downing St today to get @GOVUK to remove VAT from our energy bills in a bid to move the @ofgem price cap below £3,000 by Oct 23. Show your support by signing here: https://www.change.org/OfgemPriceCap #energycrisis #ofgempetition
We're expecting a boost in signatures on this petition over the weekend, really hoping to get to 250,000 before we hand in the petition! Thank you all so much for your continued support, hopefully we'll make the changes well before next Winter and we can remove the need for the Energy Price Guarantee!
As mentioned, here are the details for emailing your local MP:
To find your local MP’s email address, go to: https://members.parliament.uk/members/Commons and type in your post code. Click the MP that pops up and their email address will be in a box labelled “Parliamentary Office”. You can just click that email address and it will open a new message for you with their email address filled in to the “Send” section.
Please add my email address as a CC: richard@over50smoney.com
Please set the subject to “Attend the Hand-in of our Energy Petition at 10 Downing Street on 12 December”
Then copy and paste the message below into the text of your email:
Good afternoon,
I’ve signed a petition for Ofgem to review and change the price cap formula and for the UK government to scrap VAT on retail domestic energy bills. The petition has now gathered almost 220,000 signatures and is still growing. You can view the petition here: https://www.change.org/OfgemPriceCap
I am emailing you to inform you that Richard Winstone, the person that started this petition, will be attending 10 Downing Street at 15:00 on Monday 12 December to hand in the petition. It is expected that his local MP Helen Grant will be attending, as will various media outlets.
It is Richard’s belief that, through combined efforts of the Government and Ofgem, we can get the Ofgem Price Cap to be below £3,000 by October 2023, removing the need for the Government’s Energy Price Guarantee 6 months early, saving billions of pounds of public money and reducing our energy bills before next Winter.
If you are supportive of his petition and his ideas (which I hope you are) then I’d like to request you join him in a show of support by attending 10 Downing Street on Monday 12 December at 15:00 when he hands in the petition. Richard has informed us that there will be opportunity for any MPs in attendance to talk to the media about their views on the petition and the energy price cap.
Additionally, to help raise further attention, Richard and a few others will be carolling at Parliament Square after they’ve handed in the petition, to which he has also invited any MPs that would like join him.
If you would be so kind as to respond to both me and Richard (CCed) informing us of whether you’re likely to attend, that would be appreciated.
I look forward to your response.
Kind regards
[enter your name]
[enter your full address including postcode]
Thank you all again, I'll post more updates Monday morning and Tuesday following the hand-in of the petition.
Have a great weekend.
Richard Winstone