LONDON, October 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Responding to Ofgem's announcement today (Monday, October 6th) that it could find no evidence of a price cartel among the energy companies, Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite said: "This report offers no comfort to consumers dreading the coming cold months.

"The issue that really needs the regulator's scrutiny is why have these greedy gas and electricty companies been allowed to get away with extortionate price hikes - five and six times the rate of inflation - in the cost of an everyday essential? They have behaved like racketeers squeezing every penny from consumers who simply have no place else to go.

"It is high time that the energy providers did what was moral and responsible. They could easily return a proportion of the windfall profits they are sitting on to the British public and feel no pain in so doing.

"Government and the regulator must get on the side of the people who are paying through the nose to heat their homes, not the mega-rich energy companies who are laughing all the way to the bank."

For further information contact Pauline Doyle on +44(0)7976-832-861.