Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): I welcome the Prime Minister’s efforts to get us cheaper energy through shale gas, but did the EU recognise that its regulations and energy policies are making us completely uncompetitive in world markets, destroying jobs and giving us energy that our elderly cannot afford?
The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron): I think it is important that we ensure that Europe does not make the situation worse through new regulation that could stop the exploitation of shale gas. That was part of what we discussed at the European Council. Also, there is an opportunity to get cheaper supplies of energy if we can increase competition within the single market, and that should be the aim of our policy.
June 4, 2013
Not a very satisfactory answer. Energy policy has and is doing an enormous amount of damage to the UK economy and everyone’s standard of living. If the return on the policies were demonstrably showing a greater benefit than the cost then that would be reasonable but it is not. All the UK is seeing for it’s pain is the movement of high carbon emissions from Europe to other parts of the world so no gain there. Coupled with which cause and effect is far from settled despite claims to the contrary by eco-loons and vested interests(all the predictions so far have been so inaccurate as to be laughable). A far better strategy would be to target specific quantifiable problems and not use blanket uncosted policies and look to act globally and to rely more on future innovation and technology.