it sounds as if the government does now think it has to act to cushion the impact of energy bills on household budgets in April. It also sounds as if they will let the price go up, so they will probably determine to route more taxpayer cash to lower income families through benefits and tax credits. Alternatively they will subsidise energy companies to keep bills down. This would be a dearer route but would help more bill payers.
What they need to do is to solve the underlying problem of a shortage of energy. Our electricity system is too reliant on wind and solar which can drop off to very little power when the weather changes. They need to keep more of the fossil fuel capacity we currently have as back up. They need to install more reliable green generation with more hydro, biomass and nuclear. Depending  more and more on unreliable  imports means paying peak prices at times of general shortage with adverse effects on bills.
The government as argued here before needs to licence new gas and oil from U.K. sources. It is not green to ban domestic production only to rely on more carbon intensive imports of coal and gas instead. The U.K. could follow the US model of lower gas prices with plenty of home production rather than the European model of very high prices, gas scarcity and reliance on Russian imports.
It is far from helpful that the government will end up with higher benefits, more subsidies and higher public spending because they have allowed a severe shortage of gas to emerge. Cutting  our stockholding capacity and our domestic output comes with a dear price.
January 7, 2022
Good morning.
What a depressing article. An article that does little to address the underlying problem that it has been government policy that has led to this. It is NOT the lack of supply that is driving up the price of energy, it is the government policy of destroying and not building new power stations, and instead rely on others. It has been government policy to introduce means of generating energy from renewables and pay large subsidies to them even when they are producing no energy. It was government that interfered with the market with price caps. And so on, and so on.
Now government has realised that its own policies are hurting the poorest and thereby its election chances, so have decided to subsidies energy bills to the detriment of others.
I would like to remind our kind host that this government is committed to removing all fossil fuels from our energy supply and replacing them with renewables. It is committed to policies that create even more energy demand and a system that simply cannot ever meet it. This will intern lead to problems further down the line.
No ! Making bad policies based on the short term needs of you party to get elected and not the long term needs of our nation are. The real reason why we have such high energy prices is the Climate Change Act and the governments eco fanaticism.
January 7, 2022
Agree 100%, the real issue is energy security, the elephant in the room is now visible to all. Not since the referendum debate has such a real political issue taken hold amongst my “whole” circle of friends and family.
A perfect storm is brewing and the May local government elections will be the first protest vote and a disaster for the Conservatives.
The Government needs to address the real issue, how did a technologically advanced island nation blessed with energy resources and reserves end up dependent on a financialised energy market over which it now had no influence or control.
Heat or Eat will resonate and destroy this Government when Inflation and Debt cripple our economy.
January 7, 2022
Very true Mark. Government policy over the last 50 years is responsible for most of the problems we see today in this country. Politicians and civil servants are not experts and should stop meddling in things they don’t understand.
These net-zero initiatives will be the death of this country. Take for example Greater Manchester which is introducing a Clean Air Zone charge of up to ÂŁ60 a day from 30 May 2022. This is a massive area covering dozens of large towns in Lancashire. It will impact thousands of small businesses, the profit-making part of our economy, but does this government care? No, it is just blinded by its own nonsensical climate change religion.
January 7, 2022
Christine
Oxford going far further with a Zero Emissions Zone in a few months time, with only pure electric vehicles exempt. All others being fined.
They have just found out that 80% of their own City vehicles will be fined daily.
Guess they will fine themselves, but then there is the administrative work involved in keeping track of money in, and money out, unless of course they put it out to private tender at some huge cost.
Difficult to make it up really given electric vehicles use power, which has caused some element of pollution to generate !!!
January 7, 2022
Whats the point of Car Tax if you cant freely drive the queens highway
January 7, 2022
Although I feel sorry for those living in Oxford their population is only about 152,450.
Greater Manchester has a population of over 2.55 million and the introduction of this Clean Air Zone charge will have a massive impact on businesses in the area. For many tradespeople working will no longer be a viable option unless they increase their charges substantially.
January 7, 2022
Mark, you hit the nail on the head, again.
I’ve always said that what this country needs is a Government that is considerate of the long term prospects of the people rather than politician’s individual careers. Our host is obviously excepted from this criticism!
Shame there’s no ‘like’ button for us to show our agreement of views in this forum.
January 7, 2022
Mark. I totally agree with your post. I said as much on another post. Instead of crying over spilt milk the government needs to acknowledge where it went wrong and do something positive. If John can see that our whole energy policy is crap then why can’t others? Our household will not be classed as poor enough to receive help but we are certainly not wealthy and I am incensed at the possibility of having to pay towards the bills of others.
January 7, 2022
+1
January 7, 2022
Energy policies have been so badly thought out that they have inevitably brought us to where we are. During the pre-Christmas wind ‘drought’ (you may think of it as weather) the Grid was getting more energy from coal than from wind and solar combined.
The penny seems to be dropping with a recognition that SMRs are the only long-term low CO2 solution. Has HMG noticed that the almost unbuildable EPRs will come in too late to prevent a proper Grid emergency, energy rationing, industry damage and power cuts? There is a way out, frack our own gas, build CCGT power stations which are quick and cheap while going flat out with the Rolls Royce EPRs. Compensate those people in Lancashire who are disturbed by earth tremors. Give tax advantages to ICE vehicles which run on compressed natural gas which is an ultra-low particulate and low CO2 fuel and point to that when fanatical greens object to a policy designed to keep the lights on.
Waiting for dubious French nuclear engineering could well lead to deaths from hypothermia as energy becomes unreliable and ruinously expensive.
There is a major solar project in East Anglia which will cover 2,500 acres with glass, disturb residents for years with rumbling lorries which shake the ground at a level that anti-fracking luddites would describe as earthquakes, and at a ten per cent capacity factor will produce 50MW, perhaps 65 MW in a good year. In the forest north of Thetford is a biomass power station known locally as the chicken poo factory. It produces 38.5 GW on a site that looks like less than ten acres. The former has been declared a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project — two chicken poo factories would handsomely outperform it but I doubt they would attract that designation.
I have an article at TCW entitled “White elephant energy projects that are tomorrow’s HS2” about the errors in nuclear planning. I’m working on solar.
This country has gone completely mad.
JF
January 7, 2022
Indeed. My pensioner neighbours may be deciding on eating or heating so the Consocialists can claim their green credentials. Get fracking, dig our own coal, supply our own gas, get nuclear into the mix and hydro where possible. What is wrong with these clowns in Parliament who think its acceptable to import these things from around the globe adding to our carbon footprint, whilst pretending we’re green but offsetting it abroad? Total fools and typical politicos!
I read today that Sir Nigel may be coming back into the fold. I so hope so. An oasis in a political desert. Reform Party is a must to hold these fools feet to the fire. It’s way past time the Spartan’s took action against the clown in No 10. Not only has he lost his phone, he’s lost his head and the argument.
January 7, 2022
Time action. Yes, hurray. Hurry up Nigel. He got a great platform now on GB News and he’s going to tour different parts of the country 2 or 3 times a month. It’s my experience that many people that hated him are warming to him. Bring it on. They can’t do a worse job than the 3 main useless parties we have to chose from. I am fed up of the scaremongering about voting. If nobody changes their vote we’ll just get more of the same bullsh**.
January 7, 2022
Here’s a link that any of our climate fanatics should read.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-climate-scaremongers-extreme-weather-1961-style/
Its published today in Conservative Woman but there are literally hundreds of similar articles showing the same data and elsewhere in the world. It’s a shame that the majority of politicos couldn’t do simple research, but I guess PPE graduates………….don’t do research or science! Let us pray………..they do!
January 8, 2022
Interesting article and nice to read an alternative view rather than the constant alarmist propaganda we are subjected to.
January 7, 2022
Burn coal to produce electricity. It is the cheapest option.
January 7, 2022
This is your party, Sir John. Do you know what is driving such a policy? A policy that is so damaging to the UK.
Are they trying to set a world record in ‘helping’ the world and other countries, while at the same time deliberately making us so poor that we will be unable to help our own country … or anyone else! The cabinet should be give intelligence and logic tests, and tests on their ability to debase themselves to mere yes-men.
January 7, 2022
We all know the results of those tests with their PPE qualifications!
January 7, 2022
All sounds a bit socialist JR. Imagine if the government takes the “cap” off, or ups it, for domestic energy; will the UK see the same riots as Kazakhstan is witnessing? It took its cap off and doubled the price of LPG vehicle fuel. Fortunately, we can now destroy public works, throw them in a Dock, and a Jury will let you off.
“And as political unrest and polarisation around the world have shown, there are growing signs of discontent with the status quo. In one 2020 survey by the marketing and public relations firm Edelman, 57% of people worldwide said that “capitalism as it exists today does more harm than good in the world”. Matthew Wilburn King, BBC)
January 7, 2022
It is government interventions that are causing problems not capitalism acorn.
January 7, 2022
Dear Sir John–I was banging on about carbon scrubbing the other day and, as I said, I struggle to believe that the Government has given up on the subject, for reasons apparently of mere money. This is something that could certainly be done and which in the ultimate could save the planet, in particular the acidification of the seas. Whar’s another trillion or so in light of that? Not that I know much about it, but you may have read recently that Iceland has found a way to sequester (might not be exact right word) CO2 in porous rock by blowing air through it, which seems a very possible Way To Go to me (Yes I know they have geo heat pumps and hot geysers that we do not and that it would be a gargantuan project).
January 7, 2022
May I recommend ‘Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom’ by the Greenpeace refugee Dr Patrick Moore. Short version of one chapter: our oceans are alkaline and will stay that way.
January 7, 2022
How is biomass green energy Sir John? Isn’t false categorisation and offshoring at the heart of our problem?
January 7, 2022
NS
Indeed if bio mass is green should not the government be promoting wood burning stoves, rather than wanting to ban them !
January 7, 2022
Valid point Sir J. Should the government spend money by giving it to those who are poor or invest money on things that ultimately reduces costs, creates UK jobs, gives greater energy self-sufficiency and still support the eco carbon zero mantra.
Give a man a fish and you feed him to for a day – teach him to fish and you feed him for life. Well, you would if the Europeans leave any fish stocks in our waters!
January 7, 2022
So faced with a supply problem which they have created through the obsession with unreliable “green” energy and a failure to maintain our energy independence, Johnson’s response is more welfare and more subsidies for the suppliers .
Why isn’t he in the Labour Party? He’s morphed into Gordon Brown.
January 7, 2022
The problem is, no matter what, the government must be seen to be doing something. Climate Change. World poverty, you name it. If our 24/7 mass media get on to a story, and it runs, there will interviews of so called ‘experts’ (really spivs trying to get government funding) declaring that the government is failing in this and that. So the government try’s to silence the critics, which now include the Opposition Parties, they bung them a load of money or create half-arsed policies to make them seem they both care and are doing something about it. That is how the price caps came to be and we are paying for it – literally.
January 7, 2022
By the time this government gets around to doing anything it will be summer, and too late for Boris at the local elections.
January 7, 2022
+1
Meanwhile the govt is running round making sure that any criticism of it is deleted from social media.
That’ll help…not!
January 7, 2022
@Everhopeful
Well, they can’t get at the criticism here. I’d live to see Johnson’s face if he read this blog just once. That said, he’d probably mutter ‘Nutters, they’ll vote for us anyway because they don’t want Labour – so we can do what we like’. Sad, but almost certainly accurate.
January 7, 2022
I am a constituent of his and have bee asked to vote for him twice. The first time I went “none of the above” the second, to get us out of the EU, I lent my vote. Unless a good single issue party arrives I shall revert to none of the above next time. The Conservative majority in South Ruislip and Uxbridge should not be taken for granted.
January 7, 2022
Labour will, of course, then oppose the eventual removal of any support, when prices subside. I’d favour the reduction in fuel VAT and the complete removal of any Green levies. Leaving VAT unchanged makes the government look like a spiv.
January 7, 2022
If the government dropped the 5% VAT on fuel, people would spend the money on other things – that attract 20% VAT. Some half-wit at the Treasury said yesterday that the government couldn’t afford to lose the tax revenue. They’d get more!
January 7, 2022
Higher taxes to pay more benefits and subsidies was a dream to so many socialist PMs, and here we have it in practice. The irrationality of it all is beyond description, when what they need to do is to reduce taxes so people can better pay their own way without the middleman.
Those already on benefits will get more, but what about those that by hard work and planning do not qualify for benefits, yet will see their income slashed to the bone – These will suffer most.
This is becoming a farce worthy of Brian Rix.
January 7, 2022
Not sure I could stomach Johnson with his trousers down.
January 7, 2022
Brian Rix was basically funny, I fail to see humour emanating from Downing St nor H of C.
January 7, 2022
I have absolutely no doubt that the govt will use this as an opportunity to snatch even more cash from those who worked for it and bung it to those who use state largess to make their neighbours’ lives a misery.
After all, someone has to pay for the running costs of the hot tubs and million watt all-night security lights.
January 7, 2022
Whenever ministers are questioned by interviewers or in the HoC they never seem to be asked about the possibility of licences for gas and oil from UK sources and therefore it will not happen with the current administration. It’s all very well putting these arguments in blogs such as this or in newspaper articles but they obviously have no effect.
Where’s Private (We’re doomed) Frazer when you need him?
January 7, 2022
Should it be that “the government will end up with higher benefits, more subsidies and higher public spending because they have allowed a severe shortage of gas to emerge” I would feel cheated that I did not vote for Mr. Corbyn. If we are going to have a socialist nightmare, at least let us have one created by someone who understands it, not hopeless amateurs who add sleaze into the mix and exude an aloof sense of dither and depression.
January 7, 2022
Energy is surely one of the basics of life, so why is the Government now proposing to subsidise some peoples bills, at the expense of others who will be paying for it with higher prices and higher taxes.
The way to lower bills is to have a surplus over demand, build more power plants, and develop more gas fields.
As usual the politicians love complication and involvement.
Just look at all the so called green policies on insulation which all failed due to complication.
How many more lessons are going to be learn’t again, and again, and again.
January 7, 2022
alan
The is only one lesson to learn – Never vote for the LibLabCON !
January 7, 2022
Mark. Never a truer word spoken.
January 7, 2022
To make matters worse Hunterston B is closing today. Yet another nail in the coffin for the UK. I’m fed up hearing about the flu and Carries damn flat and would like some action on much more important issues.
January 7, 2022
“How to cut energy prices”
Get rid of government interference.
That applies to every part of our lives.
January 7, 2022
+ 1 million.
Yes!
Leave us alone!
January 7, 2022
I agree Graham
SirJ your government needs to stop its green revolution, stop all subsidises to renewables and get back to reliable coal, gas & nuclear
January 7, 2022
The current government/BEIS Net Zero Strategy plan is to halve our total power usage by 2050, despite increasing our population by 10m through legal immigration alone.
To incentivise reduced energy consumption, the government/BEIS intends to increase energy costs and realising that gas is far cheaper than electricity will be working to balance out the consumer prices of these two forms of energy.
On P22 of the Net Zero Strategy is written :
“Delivering cheaper electricity by rebalancing of policy costs from electricity bills to
gas bills this decade.”
It is strange the government/BEIS feel the need to do this when we are told that wind energy is both plentiful and free.
January 7, 2022
As I have said here before, deliberately imposing measures which result in an increase in energy costs, and then trying to fund measures to alleviate the increased costs, is idiotic both economically and politically. The government’s socialist focus on only helping the very poorest means that (as hinted by the PM the other day) they are looking at increasing support for those on benefits through the Warm Homes Discount Scheme. The problem here is that this scheme is funded by INCREASING the bills of everyone else! So Conservative voters whose earnings are just above the level deemed ‘poor’ will actually be WORSE off. This is not just madness, but evil too.
As an immediate solution, in addition to keeping the promise to eliminate VAT, the government needs to eliminate (or at the very least, suspend) all the idiotic environmetal levies. Then they need to answer a very simple question: why did they do NOTHING to implement the findings of Sir Dieter Helm’s 2017 Cost of Energy Review? (It is available here, but be warned -it is 242 pages! https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/654902/Cost_of_Energy_Review.pdf )
This is a problem created at number 10. We truly have an utterly useless and stupid prime minister.
January 7, 2022
The answer is simple – change the Leader.
January 7, 2022
I see the hand of Davos the World Economic Forum and the UN…. none democratic organisations that are a tier above the people
January 7, 2022
When is our blinkered Government going to accept that a modern society cannot operate on intermittent electricity? There is now so much dependence on technology, especially IT, in almost every area of human activity, that the costs both social and economic will be unthinkable.
January 7, 2022
I’m very much in favour of nuclear – but not the ludicrous, over-priced, untested nuclear at Hinckley C. By the time it is finished and fails to work, the people who wasted what will probably end up at ÂŁ40,000,000,000 will be dead and buried.
Two huge white elephants – HS2 and Hinckley C
Why not stick with the tried and rested Magnox reactors?
January 7, 2022
According to Gridwatch at 1pm we are buying around 10% of electricity from abroad. What are they doing right that we are not?
January 7, 2022
There’s lots of people who are not on benefits who need help to. If the government focuses on those who only qualify if they’re on benefits then they will have failed. The winter energy payments for pensioners needs increasing, by the way before anyone asks I’m not a pensioner.
January 7, 2022
well said – if my state pension and drawdown increase to cover very high new increases in cost of living, I will, like millions of others, be paying more tax.
Don’t forget the masses who for one reason or another don’t have invested, saved, finance to maintain a certain standard of living. The younger comfortably off need to have some compassion for the pensioners who worked for decades but are facing hard times largely the Governments doing.
January 7, 2022
Good article in The Express John. Well done. Hopefully Boris will read it.
January 8, 2022
I see that Mr Skidmore has defected to the Ultra Greens and is recommending high taxes on producers of the gas we need. He should refer to my comment the other day which pointed out that gas is already highly taxed while renewables getting ROCs have benefitted from not only their subsidy but also the substantial rise in wholesale electricity costs. It is this group that could afford to do without their subsidy. Moreover, consumers are faced with extremely high carbon taxes that were originally supposed only to act to make coal and gas uncompetitive. They are simply serving to increase electricity prices across the board, further feathering the beds of renewables on ROCs, and all at consumer expense. It would be cheaper to lower this tax than to compensate consumers for its consequences.
MPs would be wise to keep the numbers joining Skidmore’s group to net zero. His attitude is the kind that provoked the French Revolution, and indeed the current unrest in Kazakhstan.
January 11, 2022
I have actually just written to you today on this topic, I agree, but I was asking you to take more decisive action rather than just agreeing! Short term we still need fossil fuels as well as much faster investment in green energy to cut prices and reduce imports, but it is your current government that have delayed license rounds and knocked back development plans which is moving all investment away from UK oil and gas. This is reducing our energy security increasing costs and worse for the environment with imports from other countries with poorer emissions.