Spending and value for money

I have always stressed when saying we can afford to borrow to offset the damage done by anti pandemic policies to the economy that we should not waste money or undertake spending the private sector can cover as it did pre pandemic.

The Business Department budget shows that it should be possible to reduce future outgoings whilst still doing a good job for the UK economy and business sector.

The Business department has a massive Ā£175 bn of accumulated liabilities. Many of these are possible future payments to close down nuclear power plants and to subsidise wind and solar power. The AccountsĀ  may understate the possible outturn on contract for differences power costs, which areĀ  currently priced at Ā£89.6bn by the Department compared to the more modestĀ  Ā£16.5bn liability on the balance sheet.

All this needs managing to get value for money and to control outgoings.

1. Safety should of course be an absolute Ā override, but it would repay study to examine the pace of the nuclear closure programme and the speed and incidence of remedial and recovery workĀ  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā thereafter. They currently assume 7 stations close 2023-30.

2.The Smart meter programme is costing a massive Ā£20.1bn and is very unpopular with many users. Could this be rephased?

3. International contributions to climate change projects are in at Ā£11.6bn. So far the public sector has contributed more than the private. Maybe it isĀ  time to demand greater leverage from the private sector? Surely emerging countries would prefer profitable projects?

4. Ā£85.3bn of accumulated business support for CV 1 9Ā  wasĀ  necessary spending. As there are Ā£69.1bn Ā of loans, what is being assumed about repayment schedules once we have a proper economic recovery post vaccination? It is important the government makes sensible phased arrangements for recovery or for the transfer of these loans to banking sector.

5. CFD payments for renewable power . It is time for a value for money review of options as this is becoming a large contingent liability, particularly for new nuclear.

The Business Department budget is a reminder of just what a complicated nexus of subsidies, regulations and interventions there areĀ  now are to keep the lights on and the factories turning.

 

114 Comments

  1. Mark B
    January 28, 2021

    Good morning

    Our kind hosts last sentence reveals that what I have long feared and that, we have returned to the 1970’s. A time where good business are made to pay for bad ones.

    These subsidies are benefits taken from the poor and Middle-classes and given to the wealthier land owners. If one was to remove all the subsidies and aid to fake charities we would save billions upon billions.

    So what’s stopping you ?

    1. MPC
      January 28, 2021

      Mr Redwood is using his considerable influence to gradually challenge the spend status quo. When entrenched views prevail as now thatā€™s the only way forward.

    2. hefner
      January 28, 2021

      ā€˜We would save billions upon billionsā€™: by any chance would you have a more quantitatively detailed statement? If possible distinguishing between subsidies, with actual list of recipients. A list of fake charities receiving these billions of money would also be welcome.

      I hope nothing will stop you providing such information.

      1. NickC
        January 28, 2021

        Hefner, MarkB did not say that fake charities received Ā£billions. If you want precision you won’t get it – not because of MarkB but because the government splashes the money around and has no real idea how much. So we don’t either. Take HS2 for example. It started at Ā£20bn (2010 election) and is now likely to exceed Ā£100bn, even though the DfT’s 2020 estimate (!) is Ā£88bn. Simply put – government spending is out of control.

        1. Mark B
          January 29, 2021

          Cheers mate

    3. MiC
      January 28, 2021

      A healthy economy first requires a population generally free from infectious disease, so eradicating covid19 has to be a priority.

      But I wonder what measures you would be prepared to bear, if 120,000 (ONS) British had been killed here by foreign people, rather than by a virus?

      It’s becoming clear, that while competent and conscientious government has been essential to say, New Zealand’s marvellous response, the absence of seventeen million people there with the mentality of your typical brexit voter must also have been of help beyond measure.

      Just look at their useless, defeatist, fatalistic comments here in recent months for instance.

      1. Northern Monkey
        January 28, 2021

        Perhaps it was the absence of sniping moaners longing for a departed past that made them successful?

      2. NickC
        January 29, 2021

        Martin, New Zealand locked down its borders. Something you opposed when I suggested locking down UK borders in March 2020. You also opposed President Trump locking down USA borders to Chinese flights (2nd Feb 2020) and subsequently to flights from the EU. Covid19 is now endemic, and mutating, like influenza. So wailing and stamping your feet to make the horrid thing go away just makes you look juvenile.

    4. glen cullen
      January 28, 2021

      Spot on

    5. DavidJ
      January 28, 2021

      +1

  2. Peter
    January 28, 2021

    I note an article in the Daily Express concerning a suggestion from Sir John Redwood ā€˜Cut them offā€™ :-

    ā€˜We need to increase our own ability to make and grow things at home, not rely on too many EU imports.
    “A new fishing, farming, energy and manufacturing policy is needed.”

    This is a laudable plan for the long term.

    However, events around vaccines suggest the EU are failing to act in good faith and are deliberately damaging the UKā€™s exports. While it is probably not something a politician can say, we need to respond in kind and deliberately hamper key EU exports to the UK.

    If EU then persists with their awkwardness, it raises the question of whether the current deal is any better, in practice, than WTO terms. The twelve month notice to quit should then be reconsidered.

    1. Mike Durrans
      January 28, 2021

      Agreed, but then Iā€™m biased as I never trusted the eu in the first place, They certainly are not friends of Britain

      1. Fedupsoutherner
        January 28, 2021

        Agreed Mike. I am fed up hearing the phrase “Our friends in Europe”. What friends?

    2. Peter
      January 28, 2021

      I note another tweet from Sir John:-

      ā€˜The U.K. needs to intervene urgently to free the flow of goods between GB and Northern Ireland. The U.K. needs to uphold the U.K. single market for all users.ā€™

      Absolutely correct. If there is going to be a continuing issue here, it needs to be brought into the open. EU restrictions should be ignored where free flow is compromised. If they donā€™t like it then we give notice of WTO terms.

      I must admit I would have preferred WTO terms in the first place. If something is worth doing it is worth doing properly. It would have removed the poor terms for UK fishing as well as Northern Ireland anomalies.

    3. DavidJ
      January 28, 2021

      Excellent proposal Peter. If it is not clear by now, after 5 years of so-called “negotiations”, that the EU is not our friend then it certainly should be.

    4. H F Clark
      January 28, 2021

      Herar, hear! Absolutely right.

    5. London Nick
      January 28, 2021

      Of course the prime minister – and indeed ALL our MPs – should say that the EU is acting as our ENEMY. Instead Boris constantly repeats the idiotic refrain that they are “our friends and partners”. This is not just risible and moronic, but makes him look weak and absurd. It is precisely this cowardly inability of our politicians to tell the truth and call a spade a spade that makes them all look so dishonest and untrustworthy and which makes the public view them, and politics in general, with contempt.

      The EU has ALWAYS been our enemy. They HATE us, and always have done. They have always tried to harm us economically. This was the reason I voted Leave. Obviously they will continue to do so, and the pathetic, cowardly and treacherous refusal of Boris Johson to respond in kind is unforgivable.

      And now, to top it all, he has today conceded that we might (read: ‘will’) send the EU some of our vaccines. Effectively, Boris is willing to let British citizens die rather than upset his EU masters. Despicable!

      1. NickC
        January 28, 2021

        London Nick, Exactly right.

      2. turboterrier
        January 28, 2021

        London Nick
        EU always been our enemy.
        Spot on
        We now seem to have bred our own internal enemy.
        Look no further than Sturgeon and her SNP. She is prepared to give all her vaccine data to the EU. Treacherous behaviour in war conditions worthy of the firing squad. So desperate to achieve her goal there is nothing that is too low to try and achieve her aims.

      3. Lynn Atkinson
        January 28, 2021

        I think all sentient people know this. The British (including the Scots, Welsh and Irish BTW) have twice last century thwarted their ambition to enslave the European peoples, and now we have broken their most subversive, cunning attempt in 2016 too.
        Of course they hate us.
        BTW I was reading the last Lantern we produced dated 2013. It quotes a letter in The Times thus:
        ā€˜A letter, in The Times (6-1-06) spoke of a French acquaintance asking why the British had a habit of naming landmarks after French victories; she particularly mentioned Trafalgar Square and Waterloo Station. It seems this version of history is not unusual in France.ā€™
        Such is the gulf between us.

    6. John Hatfield
      January 28, 2021

      Indeed Peter, if we have a free trade deal with the EU, why are lorries being held up at the border? As you say, we should have stuck to our guns over fisheries and the ‘level-playing field’ and if push came to shove left with no deal.

  3. agricola
    January 28, 2021

    My only observation on this rubic cube of finance is that the public sector you differentiate from the private sector is in reality the contribution in tax by the private sector. The public sector produces no wealth from its activities.

    1. Lifelogic
      January 28, 2021

      Some public sector activities do produce value and wealth but alas they are more than outweighed by other area of the state sector that use tax payers money to do actual net harm.

      The school lunch boxes for the children are an excellent example take Ā£50 in taxes (perhaps costing the tax payer Ā£5 in admin), then waste Ā£20 in admin bureaucrat costs, then give the remaining Ā£30 to a selected company (perhaps one that spends lots of money on lobbying or employing politicians as ā€œconsultantsā€ or is well connected in other ways) to provided the ā€œlunchesā€.

      Tax payer down Ā£55 child gets two old apples, two spuds, a bit of cheddar and a sweet yoghurt drink worth perhaps Ā£2 and not even what they wanted anyway. Essentially the same with almost everything else state delivers or pretends to deliver.

    2. MiC
      January 28, 2021

      Baloney.

      Or do you consider educating the young, treating the sick, defending the realm, administering justice, installing infrastructure and the like to be valueless?

      Perhaps you do.

      1. Lifelogic
        January 29, 2021

        Why should the state have to have virtual monopolies on education and healthcare? They do it very inefficiently indeed and kill nearly all innovation and competition by being free at the point of use.

  4. Stephen Priest
    January 28, 2021

    I am in complete despair how this Goverment keeps destroying our lives and the economy with never ending lockdown.

    Lockdown was the invention of Xi Jinping, the world’s worst dictator.

    The proper Conservatives like Sir John Redwood, Sir Desmond Swayne, Sir Charles Walker are left on the back benches while Boris Johnson prefers to listen to his Left Wing Masters in SAGE. He seems more like a hostage under threat than a leader.

    1. Stephen Priest
      January 28, 2021

      Of course we should no give up or we will never get our freedom back

    2. Nick from the Red Wall
      January 28, 2021

      Honestly, does anyone seriously think the Tories have any remote chance of holding on to their majority come next GE ?
      Not a snow balls chance in hell. Most real Conservatives will be hitching up on the new Farage /Tice vehicle – at least they have real business brains and are not beholden to hidden yet parasitical financial and green agenda forces. Or simply not voting at all.
      The present Tory Party are today run by a potato in a wig and the two ronnies of doom, it ain`t going to get much traction at the polls when the fog lifts. Maggie will be spinning in her grave. The result, well, probably a Labour /Marxist cabal for the foreseeable future brought in on the promise of UBI and compensations for loss of business and livelihoods.

      1. Fedupsoutherner
        January 28, 2021

        +1000

      2. Richard1
        January 28, 2021

        Well they will be voting for a Labour govt if they do. My guess is such a govt would take us back into EEA / EFTA as a prelude to rejoining at a later date.

      3. Lifelogic
        January 28, 2021

        Honestly, does anyone seriously think the Tories have any remote chance of holding on to their majority come next GE ?

        Yes I think they will win. Very few sensible English people want to be ruled by Labour (ordered about by their paymaster state unions) and with the tail wagged by the SNP. A shame Boris is being turned into a daft climate alarmist, lockdown enthusiast and socialist. Also his idiotic chancellor (PPE again) thinks this.

        Raising taxes now means they can be reduced ahead of the next election, Rishi Sunak tells Tory MPs!

        Raising taxes from the hugely overtaxed, over regulated and indebted position would be insanity mate. Even before the net zero Carbon lunacy!

    3. DavidJ
      January 28, 2021

      +1

    4. Peter Parsons
      January 28, 2021

      Given that Desmond Swayne doesn’t seem to know that death rates being 14% above the 5 year average (the standard measure used for comparison) is not normal, I certainly wouldn’t consider his views on this subject worthy of listening to.

      1. NickC
        January 28, 2021

        Peter Parsons, There’s nothing magic about the “5 year average”, especially if the last time we had substantial above average death rates was a decade ago. You seem not to understand what “average” means.

        1. Peter Parsons
          January 28, 2021

          I most certainly do understand what an average is, and certainly better than Desmond Swayne seems to given some of his comments.

          As I pointed out, the 5 year average is the standard measure used for comparisons. It would behove politicians who are commenting on something to know how the figures they are commenting compare to the standard measure used.

          1. NickC
            January 29, 2021

            Peter P, Both averages and percentages can be useful. But they can also hide information unless you understand what they are. If we get the same number of excess deaths this year as in 2020, the difference to the 5 year average will look better. Why? Because the 5 year average that includes the 2020 year will flatter the 2021 year. So how useful is the 5 year average, unless you are aware of its shortcomings? As I said, the 5 year average is not magic.

      2. a-tracy
        January 28, 2021

        Peter there are spikes or ā€˜baby boomā€™ years to consider, so five years isnā€™t always the best statistical representation. I read this in Mental Health.org.uk ā€œMore people will reach their 65th birthday in the UK this year than at any other point in history. In fact 169,000 more people will be 65 this year than last year- a 30% increase in just one yearā€ So doesnā€™t if follow if there are years with 30% increased births there would be a similar peak at end of life. I would like to see a death correlation with birth since the 1920ā€™s and also taking account for the years of high immigration in addition to natural British baby boom years.

      3. Lynn Atkinson
        January 28, 2021

        Well the additional suicides, untreated diseases etc are contributing substantially. But the 2018 and 2019 winters were mild and we experienced lower than average deaths, so 2020 was a catch up. This winter deaths are once again lower than average.

        1. a-tracy
          January 29, 2021

          From the ONS 30 Nov 2018 ā€” Females and the elderly were most affected by excess winter mortality. Of the estimated 50,100 excess winter deaths (EWD) in 2017 to 2018, there were 43.7% (21,900 EWD) among males and 56.1% (28,100 EWD) among females.

          So if three years ago there was an excess of deaths – with a higher % of women dying from influenza and other respiratory viruses in the UK (over 50,000 excess deaths that winter) then wouldn’t it follow that men who survived that year would be wiped out with this covid virus?

  5. Iain gill
    January 28, 2021

    The old nuclear submarines are still tied up rotting away, and nobody seems to have a clue how to safely destroy them. There’s another multiple billion liability that should be on the government books.

  6. Sea_Warrior
    January 28, 2021

    The Smart meter programme needs ending immediately. Whatever benefits it offers aren’t remotely justified for the cost, which is that of a large nuclear power station to keep the lights on during cold, windless days. The time it takes me to submit a meter reading is about a minute. I have the time!

    1. None of the Above
      January 28, 2021

      Wholeheartedly agree.

    2. alan jutson
      January 28, 2021

      Sea Warrier

      I agree Smart meters an absolute waste of time and money, given they are promoted as ” it helps save the consumer money” because they do no such thing.

      They may help the Suppliers save money with automatic meter reading, and there may be some future controls built into them, which few as yet know about, but why is this being subsidised by the Government.

      The best way for consumers to save money is by shopping around.

    3. Fedupsoutherner
      January 28, 2021

      We are constantly being offered a smart meter but won’t have one unless it’s mandatory by law. As you say, it takes a minute to read the meter.

    4. JoolsB
      January 28, 2021

      And how many donā€™t work if our experience is anything to go by? We live in a very rural area and when our supplier came to fit ours he told us straight away he guaranteed it wouldnā€™t work because mobile phone signals here are very poor. He was correct – it doesnā€™t and has never worked. But he had to fit it anyway to meet Government targets.

      Another classic example of this so called ā€˜Toryā€™ (?????) Government pā€”-sing money down the drain.

    5. glen cullen
      January 28, 2021

      I agree with your comments – I fear that soon this government will make smart meters law (for our benefit)

    6. Lifelogic
      January 28, 2021

      +1

    7. NickC
      January 28, 2021

      Sea Warrior, Indeed “smart” meters are no help to the householder, their only use is to eventually control how much electricity you can have and when. It is part of the “green” plan to combat the inherent variability of Wind and Solar by controlling the demand instead of the supply.

  7. DOM
    January 28, 2021

    A tale of Socialist State waste and abuse of the private for political ends. I believe the process of State theft from our lives will accelerate as we move forward towards an authoritarian environment. All we have will be targeted by the brutal Socialist State. I can see it happening today.

    Most politicians have ditched ideas of reform and State v person separation and have now embraced the State’s total authority over all things public and private. That should incite fear in everyone

    Politicians and bureaucrats are now out of control and psychotic

    1. JoolsB
      January 28, 2021

      +1

    2. NickC
      January 28, 2021

      Dom, That is correct. And the covid19 disease has given the politicians inclined to authoritarianism the excuse they needed to control us every minute of our lives. A bit like the the Dummy’s guide to converting a country into a prison camp. And of course lockdown opponents are targeted for brutal or out-of-proportion treatment by the police, as well as being censored online. One saving the government could make is pulling their sinister propaganda adverts and videos.

  8. agricola
    January 28, 2021

    Something sensible from Tony Blair in his support for a vaccine passport by international agreement. Israel appare tly already has one. It isn’t new, in days of yore we carried records of yellow fever and other jabs we had had. The liberal elite look upon it as a form of appartied, seemingly on pc grounds prefering the spread of the pandemic.
    I already have the NHS record card paper clipped into my passport, getting it formalised internationally would be another step in curbing the spread of Covid19.

    1. NickC
      January 28, 2021

      Agricola, No, it is Blair grandstanding his authoritarianism. It is an appalling idea, and is nothing more than yet another control mechanism by which the elites will hamper the freedoms of the masses.

      1. hefner
        January 29, 2021

        In 2007 WHO issued its ā€˜International Vaccination bookletā€™ (the little yellow book) to help travellers collate their various individual vaccine certificates that people usually kept up to that point as loose papers with their passports.
        At that time, needing a booster, I was delighted to be offered such a free booklet by the surgery and to have all my certificates written down in one place with signatures of the nurse and stamps of the surgery.
        In addition to the commonly distributed vaccines (MMR, DTP, chicken pox, polio), a lot of countries, even Australia and New Zealand, recommend Hepatitis A (and B) vaccines. Add vaccines against cholera, typhoid, yellow fever … for most Asian, African Sud-American countries.

        Some people might consider that as a restriction on their ā€˜freedomā€™ (or whatever other ā€˜essential principleā€™ they will decide in their small heated brain) brought by the ā€˜eliteā€™.
        They forget that if they had received such vaccinations these are very likely to be already registered in some NHS computers.
        If they have never got such vaccinations might they just be one of the ā€˜stuck-in-the-mudā€™ never having moved further than their nearby market town?
        And who are they to tell other people what to do or not to do? Libertarians, my foot.

  9. Newmania
    January 28, 2021

    Is there a Party in favour of wasting money then ?
    I am not aware of it. That said this sounds a great deal more sensible than the usual Giant Redwood magic money tree although I personally doubt anything significant can be done by skimping on the environment and Nuclear safety.
    To save money the big tickets must be cut , Education the NHS and Welfare and that is , in reality what will happen .

    1. Lifelogic
      January 28, 2021

      Yes they all are – though of course they do not admit it. They waste money on grounds of health and safety, the war on CO2 plant food and countless other areas and the bureaucrats crony capitalists and friends of those in power just love it. In theory elected MP have an incentive to spent efficiently but the control mechanism of a vote every 5 years for someone (usually the least bad option of two) who says one thing then follows the party line once elected is far, far too weak.

    2. Richard1
      January 28, 2021

      Yes. Labour the LibDems (if they still exist?), the SNP and especially the Greens all fall into this category. Conservative govt is rarely perfect but its far better than any of the alternatives.

      1. JoolsB
        January 28, 2021

        Itā€™s a shame we donā€™t have a Tory Government then.

    3. acorn
      January 28, 2021

      According to the UK’s IMF accounts, the UK’s Sovereign Net Worth is (minus) -Ā£1,632,652 million. That is Non-financial Assets Ā£1,322,761 million + Net financial worth of (minus) -Ā£2,955,413 million. The latter figure = UK Financial Assets of Ā£1,033,066 million – UK Liabilities of Ā£3,988,479 million.

      As UK PLC, with its accounts to IFRS standards (Whole Government Accounts); show it is insolvent and has been for years; BUT, it is still a going concern according to the IMF. The whole show is financed by “taxpayers equity” who will continue to fund UK PLC for ever more.

      The magic bit is, where do the taxpayers get the “Ā£” from to continue the funding?

      1. No Longer Anonymous
        January 28, 2021

        Private housing equity is where the Ā£s come from. Here’s the rub. We can’t realise the money in any great amount and if we do all that equity crashes.

    4. NickC
      January 28, 2021

      Newmania, Most (all?) political parties are in favour of wasting taxpayers’ money. They just won’t admit it.

  10. Richard1
    January 28, 2021

    It is interesting and significant though that the govt have reportedly been obliged now to publish their estimate of the cost of ā€˜net zeroā€™. It is quite extraordinary that Parliament voted for a measure which is estimated to cost over Ā£1 trillion (according to Philip Hammond when he was Chancellor) over the next 2 decades or so without any cost benefit analysis.

    Separately, the behaviour of the EU over vaccines is beyond belief. Incompetent, aggressive, threatening to break international law and of course taking no responsibility at all for their own mess. Some of the more competent member state governments need to get a grip on this dysfuntional bureaucracy.

  11. Narrow Shoulders
    January 28, 2021

    The Accounts may understate the possible outturn on contract for differences power costs, which are currently priced at Ā£89.6bn by the Department compared to the more modest Ā£16.5bn liability on the balance sheet.

    If ever a sentence summed up civil servants’ contempt for the taxpayers who fund all their spending this must surely be it.

    Who is authorising contracts which might vary by this much? Why do they still have a job and why do we allow ourselves to negotiate from a position of desperation. Sometime you really do have to walk away, review and look elsewhere.

  12. Andy
    January 28, 2021

    I pay a lot of tax and I expect my taxes spent properly.

    Why is the UK government massively overpaying for Covid vaccines? Why did it not negotiate properly?

    And is the government asking those who benefit from the early protection of these excessively expenses jabs to pay for their own?

    Iā€™m not going to be offered a jab anytime soon – it is going exclusively to the demographic which overwhelmingly votes Conservative. Odd that.

    1. Roy Grainger
      January 28, 2021

      Money more important than lives to you Andy ?

    2. No Longer Anonymous
      January 28, 2021

      I thought you always said that you vote Conservative ?

    3. NickC
      January 28, 2021

      Andy, The Oxford/AZ vaccine is being provided at cost – it is therefore as cheap as it could be in the timescale required. And did you pay for all your children’s jabs? No? So why should teachers? And true to form you cannot stop yourself making yet more spiteful ageist remarks.

    4. Richard1
      January 28, 2021

      You have posted falsehoods before on the pricing of vaccines, comparing the price of one in the EU with two in the U.K. look at what an appalling mess the EU are making of this – and then of course blaming everyone but themselves. The Brexit-inspired decision to go independently in the U.K. will save tens of thousands of lives.

      1. hefner
        January 29, 2021

        I would think that strictly speaking there is not much relationship between Brexit and the way Covid-19 is handled here. Given the high level of infections and deaths in this country I would even think preferable not to try to link Brexit and Covid-19 and certainly not to claim that Brexit ā€˜will save tens of thousands of livesā€™, as Richard Tice has been claiming without any proof whatsoever (Express 22/01/2021).

        1. a-tracy
          January 29, 2021

          Hefner if this had been the other way around and the UK had not been able to get any vaccines you would have been the first person out of the blocks to link Brexit and Covid-19!

    5. Fedupsoutherner
      January 28, 2021

      The vaccine is being offered to the elderly and those with health problems in other countries too.

    6. Lynn Atkinson
      January 28, 2021

      There is an agreement to massively overpay for all medication so that the same medication is supplied to the 3rd world free. Another hidden subsidy for which I would have expected your approval.

  13. Bryan Harris
    January 28, 2021

    I’d say it’s time those handling such large budgets woke up to the realities of life.
    They should be working to a budget of what we can afford – not some fancy idea of what would be nice. We need to focus on what we really need.

    That said, government has a history of being unable to estimate true costs. — It seems that major projects are deliberately under-costed to get them off the drawing board – HS2 is but one example.

    Certainly, things like smart meters should be halted – there are too many concerns about them – A small fortune would be saved from TV adverts alone.

    By “International contributions to climate change projects” One assumes this is just the amount we send abroad as part of guilt inherent in being a productionised country – part of the effort at wealth transferrence… This is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE and should be stopped immediately – Like all aspects of the effort to send us back to the dark ages as far as power and energy is concerned, ensuring the lights do really go out, distorted thinking needs to get real.
    STOP WASTING MONEY ON FAIRY TALES.

  14. Lifelogic
    January 28, 2021

    Indeed but since when have governments and bureaucrats been concerned about delivering real value for money?

    It is not their money nor they who get the value so they care not what it costs or what value (if any) it delivers. They are just as happy blocking the roads for ā€œgreenā€ reasons as they are building new ones. The net zero Carbon agenda, the current lockdown and HS2 are totally insane. As is the dire, communist, state monopoly NHS rationing system.

    1. Lifelogic
      January 28, 2021

      Wasting taxpayerā€™s money in rough order of the level of waste which is huge.

      The expensive renewable, intermittent energy agenda and the war on CO2
      The counter productive current lockdown and the over reaction to Covid. This will clearly kill more than it saves.
      Payment to encourage the feckless not to work and augment single parent families.
      Government over regulation of almost everything especially employment laws.
      Over the top and misguided health and safety red tape everywhere.
      HS2 and Hinckley C and importing absurd ā€œBiofuelsā€
      Electric car subsidies (for expensive & premature technology that does not even save any C02)
      Government propaganda adverts.
      Absurd over taxation and over complex taxation.
      Corruption or favouritism in awarding contracts or jobs to mates.
      Lots of bureaucrats doing nothing of any use of positive harm often from home on full pay and gold plated pensions.
      The state monopoly NHS rationing system.
      Lots more too.

      1. NickC
        January 28, 2021

        Lifelogic, A splendid, and awful, list.

  15. Ian Wragg
    January 28, 2021

    All subsidies for power generation should be scrapped.
    Loading climate change payments onto the private sector will make them even more uncompetitive.
    Get government out of the way and we will prosper.

  16. Roy Grainger
    January 28, 2021

    I have Smart meters. They are convenient because it is hard for me to read the meters manually. Whether this minor improvement justifies the cost of the meters (which look quite expensive) is doubtful. Of course it was promised they would cut energy bills which was a bizarre claim. How ? My energy bills are (of course) entirely unchanged, how could they not be ? I suppose really they are the Trojan horse vehicle to enable future dynamic pricing of electricity when we are dependent on unreliable wind power.

    “International contributions to climate change projects are in at Ā£11.6bn. So far the public sector has contributed more than the private. Maybe it is time to demand greater leverage from the private sector? ”

    Or maybe it is time to reduce overall contributions and give the balance to internation Covid vaccine projects for poorer countries instead ? In the long run that will benefit everyone. I know we are already contributing more to this cause than all of the EU 27 countries combined, but just doing better than the EU is hardly a stretch target.

    1. graham1946
      January 29, 2021

      They also tell us that renewables are coming down in price massively. Where? I am just finishing a 12 month fixed electricity contract and the new price for ‘all green’ electricity has increased for a new contract by 25 percent. I am hunting around for a better deal, but so far no-one has offered a price the same as last years, all are higher. It’s all a big rip off con to suit the big corporations.

  17. None of the Above
    January 28, 2021

    I must declare that I am not an economist nor am I an accountant.

    I will not, under any circumstances, permit a ‘Smart Meter’ to be fitted in my property. My advice would be to scrap the current programme and tell consumers that if they want a ‘Smart Meter’ they must pay for it directly themselves. Please do not permit suppliers to pay for it because they will spread the cost thereby forcing me to subsidise this ridiculous gadgetry.
    May I suggest that nuclear plants can be safely made to last a lot longer than may be currently planned, the saving could be spent on new ‘modular’ plant.
    Please stop funding Charities with Taxpayers money. If a Taxpayer wants to contribute to a Charity they can perfectly well do so themselves.

  18. Newmania
    January 28, 2021

    By the way- off topic – Those of us in the older end of the working population 40s /50s can see trouble ahead.
    The Government is keen to vaccinate the old , which is understandable and should transform the death toll . What we cannot have is the same idiotic encouragement to take risks we have had for the last year on the grounds of such figures. The people who are actually out and about are at the same risk they always were . I will personally ignore you and your ilk as I always do but just a shot across the bows. Don’t even try it

    1. No Longer Anonymous
      January 28, 2021

      Leave it for people who are at lower risk to make their own decision once the known vulnerables are vaccinated.

      You stay at home if you want to.

    2. NickC
      January 28, 2021

      Newmania, You need to have a look at what Merck say about the “risks” of covid19.

  19. Walt
    January 28, 2021

    Yes, do stop the ‘smart meter’ campaign.
    Address the nuclear and reliable energy supply problems with Rolls Royce and Renew Holdings, who have expertise in building and in decommissioning nuclear reactors.

  20. Fedupsoutherner
    January 28, 2021

    Surely the biggest elephant in the room has got to be constraint payments for wind farms and in particular those in Scotland. Figures produced by Dr John Constable from the Renewable Energy Foundation are staggering.
    The vast majority (96%) of the January/February 2020 constraint payments went to sixty-two Scottish wind farms, twenty of which received more than Ā£1 million in the first two months of 2020.

    Some Ā£30 million in total was paid to eleven wind farms in the Greencoat/Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) stable and Ā£19 million to fourteen wind farms owned by Scottish Power Renewables (SPR).
    Scottish constraints for the twenty-nine days that the Western Link interconnector was out of action amounted to Ā£32 million, whereas constraints for the thirty-one days when the interconnector was working amounted to Ā£37 million.
    On the last May Bank Holiday Ā£50m was paid to windfarms to switch off with some major windfarms not operating at all.

    The amount of information on this site is extensive and we really need people in government making the policies to understand the nature of renewables and understand what the consumer is being asked to fund. We are sleep walking into a nightmare and ministers don’t seem to have a clue. Has anyone given any thought to what will happen to our grid if Scotland goes independent and we are too reliant on wind? No, of cours not.

    1. Lifelogic
      January 28, 2021

      +1

  21. ukretired123
    January 28, 2021

    A revolution in the UK finances is required starting with educating youngsters in secondary schools because it is a life skill even more now. All public servants need numeracy and MPs should have proven numeric basic qualifications.
    At the moment it is not good enough esp with everybody relying on computers and not knowing what the future liabilities or rather trillions are never mind the consequences.

  22. jerry
    January 28, 2021

    “we should not waste money or undertake spending the private sector can cover as it did pre pandemic”

    I totally agree, assuming the private sector is prepared to spend (invest) to offset the damage, they need to be given a binary choice on such necessary schemes, either stand-up or step outside the ropes, so to speak.

    HMT should look at using greater/better targeted tax rebates were it can be proved physical inward investment has been made by the private sector.

  23. turboterrier
    January 28, 2021

    Sir John
    Why on earth after all this time are wind turbines, solar panels, bio-mass boilers, bio-degradable digesters still receiving subsidies? In 2020 Scottish wind farms received a total of Ā£235,000,000 for not supplying electricity. Then to be considered are the rest of the UK renewable operations and the CFD the cost for little or no value is eye-watering. All these blind faith projects just increase energy costs for infrastructure to accommodate them. Where in hell are we getting value for money?
    Still, the PM stays on the renewable (wind) highway, and if, and it is a big if, he is really determined to drive this country forward and upwards it will have to be done by supplying cheap reliable energy to enable industry, commercial and domestic users to save costs. Politicians have got to start really questioning the reason behind the lack of thought and real costings to achieve set targets when so much money and growth opportunities are being wasted. I would recommend that all your fellow members and visitors to this site read and follow Dr. John Constable and his Renewable Energy Foundation to get insight into what is really happening and has been for years regarding the waste that can be associated with the green initiatives. It is not as if the parliament has not been here before. Whatever happened to the Energy Paper written by Dieter Helm during the reign of Mrs. May?

  24. glen cullen
    January 28, 2021

    You need to get money flowing again in the system

    Last April this government instructed the BoE to instruct all Banks to stop paying dividends to shareholders ā€“ this decision needs to be reversed

    Get the economy and the money working again (and I donā€™t mean green projects nor HS2 ā€“ I mean private business and private investment)

  25. Christine
    January 28, 2021

    We now hear that EU country citizens in the UK are being offered Ā£2000 by the UK Government to return to their own country. One minute we are told they are invaluable workers for the UK economy and next we are using tax-payersā€™ money to pay them to leave! Also, we have agreed EU citizens can continue to apply to stay here until the end of June 2021. So whatā€™s to stop hordes of people coming over just to claim the Ā£2000? Maybe thatā€™s why there has been a sudden surge in people coming to settle here from Italy as reported on the news. I hope none of this is true. Our Government seem intent on wasting money and bankrupting the country.

  26. The Prangwizard
    January 28, 2021

    I am horrified and disgusted by the stated cost of installing smart meters.

    At least I can say I have not contributed to the waste as I have resisted each every attempt to force me to have one.

    Can nothing be done to restrain the fanatics in your party’s government? Maybe if everyone realised as a starting point that the tree planting obsession to save the planet is another crass mistake.

    1. jerry
      January 28, 2021

      @TPW; So called smart meters are just green-crap madness on stilts.
      What is also often forgotten, company meter readers do more than just read electric or gas meters, they should be checking for fraud (attempts), accidental or age related damage to the utilities equipment and cables or pipes. As for an outbreak of common sense from this Govt, no chance, what with the UK and our PM being the host to COP26, of course they could always cancel it again…

  27. ian@Barkham
    January 28, 2021

    The Smart meter program is one of those inexactitudes that the Government keeps spinning. They are not Smart(Just as our smart motorways aren’t)
    As a way of reading a meter without visiting every property, it is a good idea, it saves the energy firms a lot of money. However they do not at any stage save the consumer money directly, they cant. The sinister side is that they do spy on the individual and the data collected is available as a right to those not involved in supplying energy.
    Its one of those ‘just because you can – doesn’t mean you should’ projects.
    In someways the political spin being perpetuated by the Government keeps high-lighting why the UK Citizen should never trust them. They (the Government and their mandarins) after so many years of EU doctrine have forgotten who in a democracy they work for!

    1. ian@Barkham
      January 28, 2021

      I am reminded that a while back British Gas offered advice in how to reduce our bills with them. A long drawn out charade of platitudes that finally got down to, if you turn your gas off and don’t use it you will save money

  28. ian@Barkham
    January 28, 2021

    In a nut shell, and particularly with the non-taxpaying big outfits there should be no handouts. A handout out or a grant is always someone else’s tax burden.
    Investments, loans with a proper return on the other hand become the bank for tomorrows prosperity. Again I am reminded of history. After WW11 the Marshal Plan created loans for Europe to rebuild, Germany created an investment bank for their people that perpetuated itself and created future growth funding. The UK Labour Government blew it all on election promise giveaways until there was nothing left leaving no future growth funding, just a big debt that took some 50years to repay. As with the parable ‘is it better to give some one free food or seeds and a hoe’

  29. Mactheknife
    January 28, 2021

    The ‘green blob’ keep telling us that their renewable energy is the cheapest and yet my electricity bill keeps rising. I suspect its down to the subsidies we have to pay to make it “the cheapest”. Time to end subsidies.

    Smart meters are just a wheeze by energy companies to show their ‘green credentials’. Nobody wants them or needs them. Stop the subsidies.

    Climate change is another wheeze dreamed up by the left to replace the death of socialism. Like Covid, the thousands of scientists who dispute the ‘man made’ part of this are silenced by big tech, their own organisations via threat of dismissal and industry journals who collectively don’t want to stop the flow of governmental cash to research organisations and NGO’s. Stop the subsidies.

  30. Fedupsoutherner
    January 28, 2021

    Do we really need to hear about Scottish Independence at this time? Surely there are more important things to think about.

  31. London Nick
    January 28, 2021

    Does anyone have any confidence in Kwasi Kwarteng to steer the BEIS properly? His very first decision is NOT to make any changes to working rules red tape, in order not to upset our EU masters. So there goes that potential benefit of Brexit.

    And the plan is to shut nuclear power stations, before we have new ones coming on stream, thereby making us more reliant on the interconnector with France, and thus more vulnerable to EU blackmail. Genius! Is this treachery planned or just the result of monumental stupidity?

    The cost of supporting businesses through te lockdown is another massive self-inflicted wound. I have twice tried to post here a brief outline of the three pharmaceuticals which, taken in combination, would prevent any covid deaths – and thus allow us to open everything up and return both our lives and the economy to normal – but you have refused to publish my comments. That doesn’t make them any the less true! The lockdown, and ALL the associated costs, and completely unnecessary.

    As for our “international contributions” – this is just a euphemism for giving money away and getting absolutely NOTHING for it. Not even any gratitude. We are the biggest mugs in the world, and all because Boris is terrified of upset our enemies on the Left who will never support him anyway. What an idiot!

  32. Gordon Merrett
    January 28, 2021

    20 billion just to install so called smart meter! Did anyone in government calculate what the savings would be. Zero as far as I can see. But there “its not their money they waste, only the tax payers”

  33. Mike Wilson
    January 28, 2021

    One becomes bored pointing out the appalling waste of money chronicled by the Taxpayers’ Alliance. But, is anything ever DONE? Does anyone say; ‘What!? This will stop, NOW’, and stop it? No, of course not. It just goes on and on and on. Once you give politicians the power to take money off you, they will piss it up the wall any way they want.

    1. NickC
      January 28, 2021

      Mike, Keep up the good work, and the good work of the Taxpayers’ Alliance.

  34. ian@Barkham
    January 28, 2021

    When a petulant child lashes out makes disturbing threats and makes demands for something someone else has – just because they were never organized properly and they now want the same. Do you just roll over and give in?
    Do you roll over and give in when it could mean a member of your own family that may die as a result, just so you wonā€™t be bullied. Get bullied once and what happens next time.
    It is something different and prompts an oh so polite accommodating response when some admits they screwed up and asks for help to bide them over.

    There is such a thing as diplomacy, friendship and being a good neighbor that seems to escape this modern society.

  35. Edwardm
    January 28, 2021

    Good that JR keeps delving into the financing and subsidizing of projects and how resources are spent.
    Given the govt’s reluctance to have gas fired power stations, it should look into importing clean cheap controllable hydro-electricity from Norway, a friendly country.
    O/T Thank you to JR for speaking up clearly about the aggressive threats from the EU over our vaccine supplies – we need JR more than ever. I say that as a chemo + Covid sufferer/recoverer.

  36. London Nick
    January 28, 2021

    On the subject of Kwasi Kwarteng’s BEIS incompetence, here’s a quick question: why is it that, after having spent Ā£500 million rescuing OneWeb (correctly, in my view), the satellites for this company are still manufactured in Florida?

    One of the principal arguments for this sort of investment is to ensure that manufacturing is done in the UK. Kwarteng only talks about “potential” benefits to UK science and manufacturing. Err, how about insisting on ACTUAL benefits … NOW?

    1. Lifelogic
      January 28, 2021

      And he is one of the brighter and sounder MPs. Though he know nothing at all about energy, physics or energy engineering as he often displays to all.

      1. rose
        January 28, 2021

        He caved in on fracking.

    2. forthurst
      January 28, 2021

      The British government does not own OneWeb; it’s jointly owned with Bharti Global. Why would the latter company agree to closing the Florida factory and building a replacement in the UK?

  37. alan jutson
    January 28, 2021

    From all of the comments so far John, Smart meters do not seem to have turned on your readers, I wonder what those who have them think of them ?

    How much do they know they have they actually saved ?

    Would it not be worth someone in Government checking what may of us out here feel is a simple and catastrophic waste of money, just to tick a fake green box policy

    Reply Thats why I am proposing cuts in this budget because many do not want one

  38. Lynn Atkinson
    January 28, 2021

    The State needs to identify its core responsibility and specialize in that exclusively. The PM, having inexplicably accepted responsibility for 100,000 deaths mostly with a virus, must surely on his own terms, resign. The truth is that the Tories need to get a grip pretty soon, release the British people, preferably unburdened by debts caused by a very bad political decision, and deliver what only the state can deliver to world class standard.
    Boris cannot get off the pit soon enough for me.

    1. rose
      January 28, 2021

      He didn’t accept responsiblity for 100,000 deaths. He said he was very sorry. Who is not?

  39. hefner
    January 28, 2021

    Interested people should read the documents put today (28/01/2021) as updates of the 31/12/2020 documents on http://www.gov.uk ā€˜Regulatory approval of Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZenecaā€™.
    Particularly interesting (at least to me) is ā€˜Information for Healthcare Professionals on Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZenecaā€™ (10 pages) and paragraphs 4.8 and 5.1.

  40. Iain Gill
    January 28, 2021

    must say I am inside one of the big government depts at the moment, and the layers of clueless people in senior positions making rubbish decisions and wasting money on an apollo moon programme scale is amazing. its so sad to see how fundamentally messed up it is. senior stakeholders who cannot even agree on the basic requirements that they are asking their large teams to deliver, constantly pulling in different directions. staggering, staggering. clueless leading the clueless, and endless conference calls of masses of people of which you would be lucky to find 2 or 3 actually qualified to discuss the topic of the call, and of course they are the ones that get no air time. its hilarious, sad, crazy, disastrous, all in one.

  41. rose
    January 28, 2021

    Thank you for publishing your tweets here. Very useful for those of us not on Twitter.

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