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John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con):

It is good news that unemployment has stayed low by European standards, and the economy is still generating plenty of job vacancies. Will the Government take more steps to help more people into those jobs, so that we can get faster growth, bring down the benefit bill and boost their incomes?

Bim Afolami:

The whole House knows that my right hon. Friend is somewhat of an expert on matters relating to the economy. To answer his point specifically, the national insurance tax cut was scored at the last fiscal event—the autumn statement—as significantly increasing the number of people in work. Although I will not speculate on fiscal events, that point has been very much noted by me and the whole Treasury.

UK Government Investments Ltd is another of these 100% government owned arms length bodies. It is meant to supervise and manage the governments substantial holdings in nationalised businesses and its stakes in private sector companies. Last year to March it ran up costs of £23.4 m paying its CEO over £260,000 and its staff a media salary  of  £91,000 each. The Treasury made £24 m available to it to pay the bills. The auditor agreed it is a going concern because the Treasury will make cash available to pay the losses.

So what magic did we get for this expenditure? Why not rely on  departmental  supervision of these bodies which happens as well, with Ministers being more involved? Just look at what has been happening under UK GI’s  stewardship.

Post Office. PO has accumulated losses of £1390 million. It has presided over the calamity of the sub postmaster accounting system. Recent stories suggest senior management is still not resolving the issues rapidly enough despite ministerial policy to do so.

Network Rail. Despite owning all the track and stations with a monopoly the remaining net asset value of Network Rail is just £15 bn. £ 55 bn has been expensively borrowed against its network assets. It lost £1140 million last year.

The British Infrastructure Bank  . A relatively new venture, this lost £21.4 m last year with costs of £35.8 m. It is planning to commit £22 bn to investments, with £10 bn of that being guarantees and the rest debt and equity underwritten by taxpayers. The Bank does not expect to be profitable anytime soon. I expect it will be able to deliver that forecast.

Sheffield Forgemasters is a government owned defence supplier. It lost £5 m pre tax last year but does have positive assets and provides some important products.

Nat West. UK Government Investments says it engaged with Nat West as  shareholder over culture and values . It was very quiet over the leaks from Nat West and the resignation  of the Chief Executive. Clearly its engagement did not prevent serious problems.

OneWeb   This investment is now sitting on big losses. It has been rolled into EUtelsat as a UK minority holding, only for those shares to fall more. Difficult to see why the UK taxpayer should be losing money in a 10 % holding of a European business like this that it is not currently making us  money.

Sizewell C   Much delayed and over original budget.

The government should get rid of this body and go back to more detailed supervision by ministers advised  by their departmental official who currently help supervise these businesses . This track record is very poor and not worth £24 m a year.

The continuing unpopularity of Green candidates for Parliament and most Councils is a notable feature of  the UK, only surpassed in the US. Their main preoccupation to get us to net zero is now however written into most political party programmes to a lesser extent. The Democrats in the US are very keen and the non Trump Republicans accept much of it. The Lib Dems whose opinion ratings remain low in the UK want an extreme version of net zero policies like the Greens. The UK Conservatives want a more measured and pragmatic approach, with a range of views from enthusiastic to sceptic within the party. Reform has now come out against many net zero policies, as has Mr Trump in the US. In these latest UK by elections when people could vote for their best preference without worrying about who would be in government, the Green and Lib Dem vote was tiny.

The public according to polls agrees there is global warming and thinks something ought to be done about it. However a large majority do not back going over to heat pumps and battery electric vehicles for themselves and object strongly to net zero policies that make them personally worse off or make their lives more difficult. The public shows more sense than green talking politicians. Many see the folly of the UK closing down fossil fuel activities here only to import replacements from abroad with more fossil fuel used as a result. Many see that pricing UK consumers out of using so much fossil fuel will do nothing to abate the fast growth in fossil fuel use in China, India and the world as a whole.  Many just want to keep their homes warm with a gas boiler and get to work by van or car because that works.

If Mr Trump wins the US election late this year global net zero strategy suffers a major blow. If the world’s largest economy goes for extracting and using more oil and gas,and sees cheap fossil fuel energy as a competitive business  advantage that knocks a big hole in the Paris Treaty targets. The world’s second largest  economy, China, says it  is committed to net zero. However China is still increasing  its output of CO 2 and adding more coal to its energy mix as well as building wind farms. China has not yet started to cut her output. Many emerging economies reserve the right to increase their fossil fuel use as a necessary way to boost living standards.If UK Greens really thought world CO 2 mattered they would be protesting daily outside the Chinese and Indian embassies.

This is why I argue against UK government and Councils lecturing  us to make big changes in our lives that many do not want to make. Worse still some  of these policies are a nonsense in their own terms. Buy an EV and plug it in to recharge, and we will need to burn more gas in a power station to meet the demand. Change all our homes to heat pumps and create large amounts of CO 2 doing so. Why? How ?

As most of you are so critical, this is your chance to have your say and to explain what change you want.

The by elections showed many  former Conservative voters stayed home. Some went to vote Reform. The Labour vote stayed around 2019 levels, with a big turnout fall of Conservatives.

The Lib Dem vote collapsed and the Green vote stayed low. The electorate is not saying they want more net zero policies or a faster transition. Labour announced its cancellation of £28 bn extra spend a year on net zero but that clearly did not upset their voters.

Reform did better than in previous by elections, with a slogan of wanting  net zero immigration, not net zero. As a result if the voting pattern the UK now has two more Labour MPs.

The impact of Labour’s troubles over anti semitism will be seen in the next by elections, where they have now written off  Rochdale and have no candidate they support. In the areas where Labour want to alter current policy they would make things worse.

So what would you like the government to  do now? I have set out many if the things I am trying to change.

The Bank of England printed too much money. They bought too many bonds at crazily inflated prices. They kept interest rates too low for too long. That gave us a big inflation, as some of us predicted.

They then blamed the inflation on rising energy costs following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They refuse to explain why inflation was three times target before Russia attacked. They are silent on why big energy importers Japan and China did not have the high inflation when energy shot up.

Too late  they shoved up interest rates. They destroyed money. They sold bonds at depressed prices. They sent the bill for all the losses to the Treasury to make taxpayers pay to  bail them out. This has now delivered the shallow recession and downturn some of us predicted.

So why do we put up with this level of incompetence? It was obvious to anyone who studies money and credit that they lurched from too much to too little. The Bank refused to comment on money and credit, and revelled in a model of the economy and forecasts that were wildly wrong. They forecast 2% inflation for the period when it hit 11%.

What should they do now? Change their model to get their forecasts more accurate. Strengthen the Monetary Committee with some who do think money and credit matter. Stop selling bonds at  huge  losses. Allow sufficient money and credit to accommodate a bit of growth.

I was talking to a London plumber.His  invoices  for work include extra charges for parking, for ULEZ and for Congestion charge. It is a daily battle for him to get to a new job given the closure of so many streets and then to find an all day parking place. Protesters are still going out and putting boxes or other drapes over the London cameras to show their opposition without damaging these expensive spies prying into our lives. This site does not support law breaking protests.

This week Wokingham Borough has had to put  out a press release at our expense telling people not to argue with the workers carrying out another of their hated anti driver projects. Of course people should not shout at or threaten Council contractors. The need to say this shows just how much the Council misjudges the mood as it seeks to wind up all those of us who need a vehicle for work. Wasting £5.5 m of tax on a scheme which will cause delays and put people off driving to what were easily accessible local shops and a garage is a bad idea.

These cameos are part of a much bigger picture. Lib Dem and similar Councils show scorn and disdain for working people who need a car or van to get to work. They show no sympathy for  busy parents who need to drop children off at school so they can get to their job. These Councils consult and ignore. They revel in the misery they cause others. They explode with self righteousness if anyone argues back that they need to use a car or van. Yet despite this many of these preaching Councillors still rely on a gas boiler, go in fossil fuel cars and take jet planes to their holidays.

The collision of green demands by many in the governing class with the needs and pressures of daily life is becoming acute. Many of the green campaigners are hypocrites, flying  off to air conditioned hotels to hold forth again about the need to lower other people’s carbon footprints. If government press too far with their bans, their surveillance cameras, their schemes to fine people off the road with ultra low speed limits, special lanes and box junctions, they may find instead they become very unpopular. Going too far has already changed the Dutch government.

Labour’s decision to abandon most of its planned £28 bn a year extra investment programme for net zero has served to highlight the costs of the policy. It should also lead Labour to ask how they could both afford and achieve their wish to accelerate the UK’s progress to net zero compared to very exacting existing government targets. Under Mr Sunak the government has been relaxing some of the requirements, recognising that for the policy to work it has to be undertaken at a pace that people will accept. Much of the investment needs to be made by individuals and by private companies, so it needs to be realistic. The faster the government wants to go the more subsidy and direct public spending it will need to bring it about.

Labour say they are still wedded to the idea of zero carbon electricity generation by 2030. How can this be?  That would require the closure and write off of all our gas power stations and the remaining coal ones. If Drax is staying it would require a carbon capture and storage scheme to be up and running at great cost for that facility. It would require a massive expansion of the grid to handle more interruptible power and the planned expansion of electric heating and vehicles. It would need a major further investment in wind and solar power. It would require big battery installations to store power, and probably some new pump storage schemes as well. No-one seriously  believes this can be done by 2030. Nor could be it be done for part of a planned  £28bn a year let alone without £28 bn a year.

Two of the big areas where net zero requires different conduct by individuals are  transport and heating. Labour’s faster progress would mean ripping out far more gas boilers far sooner, which most people show no wish to do. It would require a fast replacement of diesel and petrol vehicles with electric. It would require an end to many holidays abroad or a rapid roll out of synthetic fuels for all aeroplanes. It is time interviewers on main media asked these crucial questions of those who advocate faster moves to net zero. It is simply wrong to be told wind energy is cheaper than fossil fuel energy when the figures do not take into account the costs of back up power today from fossil fuel. Nor do they take into account the full costs of extra grid, the costs of battery and pump storage , the costs of smart meters and the costs of rolling out charger points and extra cable capacity into homes for a more comprehensive renewables system.