I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting this issue to all in the House. I hope that the Government will take urgent action to get rid of it, because it is completely unacceptable. It also shows how little time we have to discuss fundamental issues.
My right hon. Friend has put his finger exactly on the pulse. This is a substantial Bill. I say to the Minister that I hope the Government will strip out criminal penalties for not adhering to unknown net zero certification, EPCs and all the rest of it in the future for something as simple as not complying with some of these net zero regulations. This is really serious. I hope that when the Bill returns to the other end of the Palace, consideration can be given to strip out such proposals.
I could have gone on at huge length this afternoon. I tabled many amendments because these are overweening powers trying to push and nudge us and to ban things. All I can imagine is that the Chinese embassy will be looking at the Bill with great enthusiasm, as it will drive even more of our high-energy businesses offshore. China will be pleased that it will be able to sell us more solar panels and wind turbines based on its steel, produced on the back of very cheap coal power. That is what we are doing here: driving our high-energy businesses offshore. This is not a recipe for energy security; this is a recipe for energy disaster.
I could talk at length about what is wrong with the net zero proposals banning cars, banning oil boilers, banning this and banning that. That is not what we do as Conservatives. We actually allow freedoms. We allow the market to decide. The Bill goes in the wrong direction.
September 8, 2023
‘We actually allow freedoms’. Our freedoms are defined by nature and god not by the Tory party though I accept the thrust of the argument rather than its wording
September 8, 2023
Dom: “not by the Tory part ”
It’s about time you realized the ‘Tory’ party, amounts to about 19 MPs in Parliament.
The rest are WEF drones.
September 8, 2023
Regarding this specific bill. It is a declaration of war by the political class against the civil world though to be fair this war’s been taking place since 1997 and has continued unabated in various guises since then.
To say the voter is naive is an understatement. Their naivety is a gift to the slime that now run the dumping ground some call Britain
September 8, 2023
People should be encouraged to do right things happily and willingly rather than forced to act in ways they regard as bad with the risk of punishment for not complying.
September 8, 2023
Yes, except the Establishment knows it isn’t going to get “happy and willing” from a population which can’t afford the Eco Lunacy and doesn’t want its standard of living reduced to someone living in a pre-industrial society.
September 8, 2023
What if they are being forced to do the wrong thing by ideologically corrupted elites who live in an alternate reality and don’t know or don’t care what pain, disadvantage and poverty, and loss of liberty they are imposing on the general population. The Climate Scamsters and their sponsors need to go and all their garbage laws and regulations with them
September 8, 2023
The authoritarian left walk among us – their name is Conservative
September 8, 2023
John, thank you for your interventions. You are working hard and pushing for common sense, freedoms and rigorous debate. Alas, very few of your colleagues seem to have this now rather old-fashioned approach to truth, justice and appropriate size of government. Please keep in the fight for all our sakes. We really need a major reform in the way this country is run and the mindsets of those in legislature, administrative government and worryingly after this Energy Bill – now enforcement of anti-freedom, anti-prosperity rules on people. I am expecting a popular uprising when the government comes for people’s property, freedom and rights. There will be violence on the streets when people cannot feed their families, heat their homes etc. Both Shunak and Starmer will have their King Louis and Marie Antoinette moment if they are not careful.
September 8, 2023
To borrow from William Wallace:
We are electors, and we see a whole army of my countrymen, here, in defiance of Tyranny. We’ve come to fight as free men, and free men we were. What will you do without freedom?
10.40
September 8, 2023
We are a “democracy ” – the public have their opinions and vote accordingly ; as it stands there is little sympathy and support for the Conservatives . The Government have got most things wrong due to its leadership being out of touch with reality and allowing bodies such as the BoE to make decisions . The economy and the manufacturing component badly need encouragement and it must happen fast .
September 8, 2023
If I am to suffer criminal penalties for non-compliance with the new code of Net Zero I might well think it is but a small step to commiting some real crimes although to be only directed at those who do me harm.
September 8, 2023
The Net Zero 2050 plan is outlined in the Government sponsored UK Fires Absolute Zero Report :
Travelling cut to 60%. All airports closed, all shipping shut down, trains the main transport, with some evs controlled by smart meters.
Heating cut to 60% with heat pumps controlled by smart meters.
No production of new steel, cement and glass. Construction to use earth, timber and stone with re-used glass and steel.
All energy to be electrical and generated by renewables which means that power will be expensive and intermittent and hence controlled by a combination of pricing and load shedding, aka, rolling blackouts.
As I write (12:49) the 28 GW of installed wind capacity is providing 0.1 GW of power (0.3% of demand). There will be many blackouts….
Our current CO2 emissions are 1% of the global total and declining and ‘Climate Action’ is only #13 on the UN’s list of ‘Sustainable Development Goals’. There is no climate emergency/crisis/breakdown.
There is absolutely no way I am voting for any party that supports CAGW/Net Zero. I will spoil my ballot paper with a suitable message if I cannot find a suitable candidate on the ballot paper.
We are being governed by an idiocracy.
September 9, 2023
Indeed there should be no place for measures concocted by a green dictatorship. It appears that DESNZ has lost the plot entirely: it knows its programme to make the UK the Saudi Arabia of wind is in serious trouble, and it has known that for many months, yet it has done nothing to re-evaluate and moderate the policy. Instead it demands control over the population because it knows its policies will fail, and absent that control the public will seek them out to protest even if they are working from home.