Iain Conn must immediately learn from the failure of other, now departed, battlefield generals that you cannot cut your way out of a crisis – GMB will fight these unnecessary job cuts. Contributor Stuart Fegan, National Officer – GMB.

GMB, the union for gas workers,  says Centrica’s brutal announcement today of a 4,000 further job cuts across the company – which owns British Gas – is an inevitable’ part of a failing plan Iain Conn has implemented since his appointment as CEO. The cuts come on top of 5,000 British Gas job losses since July 2015.

Stuart Fegan, National Officer, said: Our members will be devastated that a further 4,000 jobs from British Gas are planned to go by 2020. Our members will invariably ask why they have to potentially pay with their jobs to compensate for the failing plan that Iain Conn has brought to the Centrica business.

“We do not know where these potential job cuts will fall or if any sites of business units will be affected – but we will be obviously engage with British Gas urgently to understand these proposals. Members will also question why a great institution such as British Gas has got itself in such a mess in such a short period of time.

“British Gas has lost 750,000 customers in 2017 and seen its share price almost halve. Employees are leaving at record levels yet the business response is more of the same. Last year saw hundreds of thousands of customers leaving British Gas business due to tariff rolloff on several products – with no alternative offering to customers. It begs the question – why is the UK’s largest energy provider happy to haemorrhage customers?”