My questions to Ministers at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

The government declined to answer some of these important questions about energy and industrial competitiveness. They failed to acknowledge how much cheaper US gas is at home thanks to a better energy policy there. They claim not to know much about petrochemicals. They do not explain why they failed to abate the high carbon price to offer some relief on energy costs.

The answers provided do remind us how much capacity and business we have lost through high energy prices in areas like steel. They imply there will be more electricity capacity added other than wind and solar, but that includes more imports from unreliable European sources. It is difficult reconciling these figures with the figures they supplied and I published showing no planned increase in electricity before 2025 and then slow progress up to 2030. I would  be more reassured with more information that was internally consistent.

 

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what proportion of petrochemicals consumed in the UK are imported. (110222)

Tabled on: 24 January 2022

Answer:
Lee Rowley:

Consumption of imported petrochemicals cannot be estimated due to the lack of official data on imports, re-exports and consumption of these products.

The answer was submitted on 01 Feb 2022 at 16:56

 

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what proportion of steel consumed in the UK is imported. (110221)

Tabled on: 24 January 2022

Answer:
Lee Rowley:

According to the latest world steel association data, in 2020 the UK consumed 9.0Mt of steel of which 5.0Mt (55%) was imported. In 2019 the UK consumed 10.2Mt of steel and imported 7.3Mt (72%).

The answer was submitted on 01 Feb 2022 at 16:57.

 

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of demand for electricity from the UK transport sector in 2030 compared to 2022. (110219)

Tabled on: 24 January 2022

Answer:
Greg Hands:

The figures below show the Department’s latest published projections of electricity consumption in the transport sector for the years 2022 and 2030 in thousands of tonnes of oil equivalent (ktoe).

2022 2030
Transport (ktoe) Electricity 564 1,614

The answer was submitted on 01 Feb 2022 at 17:50.

 

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what increase in UK electricity generating capacity is planned by 2030 excluding wind and solar power energy. (110218)

Tabled on: 24 January 2022

Answer:
Greg Hands:

Our latest published Energy and Emissions Projections show 31 gigawatts (GW) of new non-renewable capacity are projected to be built between 2022 and 2030. Non-renewable capacity includes nuclear, fossil fuel, interconnector and storage capacity and excludes bioenergy, hydro, wind and solar.

The government are not targeting a specific capacity mix but will ensure a market framework to bring forward the necessary capacity whilst promoting effective competition to deliver an affordable, secure, and reliable system consistent with our decarbonisation objectives.

The answer was submitted on 01 Feb 2022 at 17:51.

 

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of electricity demand from domestic heating in 2030 compared to 2022. (110220)

Tabled on: 24 January 2022

Answer:
Greg Hands:

BEIS regularly publishes projections of energy demand and emissions, including projections of electricity demand in the residential sector. The most recent update (Net Zero Strategy baseline: partial interim update December 2021) was published on 7th December 2021.

In this update, electricity demand in the domestic sector in 2030 is projected to be 116 TWh (terawatt-hours), compared to 101 TWh in 2022. Projections for the component of this demand that is due to domestic heating are not available. These projections only consider policies which have been classified as implemented, adopted, planned, or expired as of August 2019, as specified by international reporting guidelines.

These figures are based on central estimates of economic growth and fossil fuel prices and have been extracted from BEIS Energy and Emissions Projections: Net Zero Strategy baseline (partial interim update December 2021) Annex F: Final energy demand.

For additional detail on the recent update to energy demand and emissions projections, please see: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-and-emissions-projections-net-zero-strategy-baseline-partial-interim-update-december-2021

The answer was submitted on 01 Feb 2022 at 17:53.

 

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for what reason he has not abated the carbon price in response to changes in the level of carbon price. (110215)

Tabled on: 24 January 2022

Answer:
Greg Hands:

Following the triggering of the UK Emissions Trading Scheme’s Cost Containment Mechanism, the UK Emissions Trading Scheme Authority (made up of the UK Government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive) considered the factors that may have affected allowance prices, and agreed that not intervening in the UK Emissions Trading Scheme was the right course of action in both December and January. The Authority issued a statement after both decisions, with its reasons, on gov.uk.

The answer was submitted on 01 Feb 2022 at 17:54.

 

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what comparative estimate he has made of industrial gas prices in the (a) UK and (b) US. (110217)

Tabled on: 24 January 2022

Answer:
Greg Hands:

Gas prices have risen across the globe as a result of a number of international factors in supply and demand, with many markets across Europe and Asia experiencing highs. These have been caused by a number of factors, industries rapidly rebounding demand, as economies exit COVID-19 lockdowns, liquified natural gas demand in Asia, and supply outages over the summer.

The answer was submitted on 01 Feb 2022 at 17:57.

 

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the potential loss of UK businesses in high energy using sectors as a result of the current high gas and carbon prices. (110216)

Tabled on: 24 January 2022

Answer:
Greg Hands:

I recognise this is a worrying time for businesses facing pressures due to the significant increases in global gas prices and its impact on electricity and carbon prices. I have met representatives of the UK’s high energy-using sectors to understand the impact on their business in the past months and extensive engagement with industry continues across government at both a ministerial and official level.

Many high energy-using businesses will have hedging strategies in place which help to shield them from exposure to the gas and electricity price rises, while some may be more reliant on current market prices.

The answer was submitted on 02 Feb 2022 at 07:22.

161 Comments

  1. Oldwulf
    February 5, 2022

    In this blog we have posted many replies about the economic incompetence of the present government, the amount of additional money we are all losing and the economic damage which is being done. Sadly, it will be many months before we (the electorate) will be able to do something about it although it seems likely that there will not be sufficient choice available to us, when the time comes. Maybe the Government is mindful of this lack of choice.

    We must therefore rely on the Conservative Party, at all levels, to make the required changes sooner rather than later.

    1. Nig l
      February 5, 2022

      Spot on. There is chaos at the top and only change can resolve it.

      It is only politics and the public sector where a person who has led its organisation ‘down the pan’ then claims to be the best person to put it right.

      Thank you and no. You had your chance, shouldn’t have been ‘useless’ in the first place.

      1. Lifelogic
        February 5, 2022

        The alternatives to Boris (the realistic ones anyway given the dire quality of most MPs) are all rather worse than Boris and Labour/SNP an appalling prospect. All rather depressing.

        Boris defenders say “he got the big things right” but he most certainly did not. He did manage to get people injected with vaccines (manufactured privately) I suppose. But hardly a difficult task doing injections I could have done myself just given the vaccines.

        He got energy wrong (and the Sunak plan for it is totally wrong headed), net zero wrong, open borders wrong, inflation wrong, the economy wrong, the size of the state wrong, the lockdowns (possible exception of the first couple of weeks), eat out to help out wrong, the socialist levelling up lunacy agenda wrong, the nudge and fear unit did huge net harm (look at the appalling massive rise in mental health referrals), they got compulsory vaccinations for heath workers wrong, they dumped people untested or even tested positive in to ill equipped care homes, they failed to vaccinate men a bit younger than women in the roll out which would have saved lives, the vaccination of children does more harm than good so wrong, they still think state monopoly in healthcare and schools is a great plan, they subsidise far too many people to read worthless degrees, they have increase taxes hugely wrong again (& red diesel to go too I see – yet another tax grab), they chose totally duff pandemic modellers and absurdly believed them, the pandemic planning done under Hunt was inept as was the dire state of the NHS before the pandemic started…

        Have I missed anything out?

        1. Lifelogic
          February 5, 2022

          Yes – Test and Trace and surely much blatant corruption in the procurement of PPE and similar.

        2. Peter
          February 5, 2022

          ‘Have I missed anything out?’

          Yes. Johnson has just admitted to the DUP that there is only 20 to 30% chance of an agreement with the EU over NI. When subsequently asked by Donaldson if he would give a commitment to ‘unilateral action’ Johnson was not prepared to do so.

          So he has left it to others such as Lord Frost to do all the hard work but has obviously failed to back them up. Bluster, delay and fail to act is Johnson’s tactic.

          Yet he will still try to claim he ‘got Brexit done’.

          1. Denis Cooper
            February 5, 2022

            This is worth reading:

            https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2022/0205/1277880-tony-connelly-brexit/

            “NI Protocol: Who needs Article 16 when crisis prevails?”

            “Even before the Protocol was agreed back in October 2019, Boris Johnson had published proposals that would form the basis of the deal two weeks later.

            “Agri-food goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain would do so via a Border Inspection Post or Designated Point of Entry as required by EU law
,” stated Johnson’s proposal.

            “They would be subject to identity and documentary checks and physical examination by UK authorities as required by the relevant EU rules.”

            However, in the spring of 2020 Robert Huey, the North’s chief vet and one of the officials tasked with putting Boris Johnson’s vision into effect, was facing resistance from his minister, the DUP’s Edwin Poots.”

            And so forth.

            We did Macbeth at school, and while the present situation is not so sanguinary I think:

            “I am in blood
            Stepped in so far that should I wade no more
            Returning were as tedious as go o’er”

            applies insofar as Boris Johnson might as just admit that he never had any intention to keep his word to anyone – not the EU, not the Irish government, not the unionists nor indeed anybody else in Northern Ireland, not the Tory MPs, and not the people who voted for them – and ask Parliament to authorise him to abrogate the protocol.

            I would prefer a brief period of national disgrace to prolonged national humiliation.

          2. Len Peel
            February 5, 2022

            It’s Frost’s deal Boris now wants to change! And Frost ran away rather than fight

        3. Dave Andrews
          February 5, 2022

          Even if healthcare was to get a privatised element, I expect the government would screw that up as well.
          Healthcare would be just as bad, except it would be run by global multinationals making vast untaxed profits.

          1. Lifelogic
            February 5, 2022

            Well the government (allegedly a Tory one) are certainly doing their very best to wreck the private rented sector for both landlords and tenants with endless red tape, licencing, rip off stamp duties and income taxes on income not even made.

        4. Lifelogic
          February 5, 2022

          Northern Ireland wrong too.

        5. Mark B
          February 5, 2022

          I am beginning to think you are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

        6. Paul Cuthbertson
          February 5, 2022

          LL – Yes – it all is part of the slow creep into the New World Order ,WEF ,Build Back Better dictat of the Globalist UK Establishment and openly spoken about by puppet Boris (and others.) Surely Redwood is aware !!!!!!

          1. Zorro
            February 5, 2022

            Of course he is – I am not sure why JR perpetuates this idea that the government is a bit dim in not knowing how much electricity they will need. Of course they do! They will have the electricity necessary to supply the population’s needs. They have not stipulated how big the population will be, and it is clear that they will charge exorbitant amounts of money to drive legally so there will be far fewer people on the roads.

            Zorro

    2. Ian Wragg
      February 5, 2022

      Correction.
      Department of business extinction and import substitution.
      Fixed it.

      1. Timaction
        February 5, 2022

        Indeed. A smell of rotting fish from this incompetent Government. No success in any area. The only increase in performance is tax collection

        1. Lifelogic
          February 5, 2022

          Well tax increases but will it even collect more in the end or will it just throttle the golden goose that lays the golden eggs? The latter I suspect.

        2. Augustus Princip
          February 5, 2022

          Their mass immigration policy is working well, all planned. They have even increased NI payments to fund it.

    3. Andy
      February 5, 2022

      You forget to point out several important things.
      1. Most of you actually voted for them anyway. (I did not)
      2. Most of you voted for your economically illiterate price rising Brexit. (I did not)
      3. Few of you will be hit by the soaring NI. (I will).

      1. Mickey Taking
        February 5, 2022

        should have gone to EU….

      2. Marc
        February 5, 2022

        You lost get over it

      3. jerry
        February 5, 2022

        @Andy; Most of the current economic damage is being caused not by Brexit but either the pandemic or the polices you did vote for; such as Labour’s idiotic Climate Change Act; or the UN’s alleged “Climate Emergency”; or other profit sapping taxes such as Congestion/zero emissions Zones etc.

      4. Lifelogic
        February 5, 2022

        @andy
        “1. Most of you actually voted for them anyway. (I did not).”
        What was the only alternative Labour/SNP clearly far worse still?
        “2. Most of you voted for your economically illiterate price rising Brexit. (I did not)”
        Brexit is clearly a positive so long as we embrace the deregulation and other freedoms it offers properly.
        “3. Few of you will be hit by the soaring NI. (I will).”
        I employ about 25 people so 1.25% on the pay bill plus they will all want wage rises to cover their 1.25% increase. Will cost me at least ÂŁ10,000 PA. Even pensioners will be hit as it will push up wage bills and prices for all.

        1. jerry
          February 5, 2022

          @LL; “Brexit is clearly a positive so long as we embrace the deregulation and other freedoms it offers properly.”

          Deregulation will be an utter disaster, even Churchill and Thatcher accepted that , what we need post Brexit is better regulations that will allow the freedoms many want to see, or are you suggesting that even a WTO exit from the EU would not have been good enough?!

          Otherwise yours is the road to ruin, a road that ends in either total exploitation or protectionism, with all the dangers they bring.

          1. lifelogic
            February 5, 2022

            We need some regulation but far less and far better directed.

          2. Peter2
            February 5, 2022

            Well said LL
            Deregulation would not be “an utter disaster”
            Anyone who has ever run their own business knows what a time absorbing diversion the ever increasing raft of rules regulations directives and laws are.
            Big business just employ a few compliance managers to cope.
            But it small companies that suffer.
            And small businesses are where most new jobs are created.

          3. jerry
            February 6, 2022

            @Peter2; Stop making blanket assertions on issues you obviously do not even start to understand.

            Anyone who has ever run their own business knows what a time absorbing diversion the ever increasing raft of rules regulations directives and laws are.”

            So you, as a sole trader or even perhaps a SME, would welcome being driven out of business by your rivals via cartels or monopolies, you as a B2B customer would not mind purchasing a Long Ton but only receive a Short Ton, for example, or would you be happy to short-change your own customers and thus loose them to your rivals…

            Anyone who has ever run their own business, heck anyone who has held a significant position within someone else’s company, understands full well why time absorbing regulative directives and laws are necessary for the success.

            Excessive regulation is a problem, not regulation per se, try to understand the difference!

          4. Peter2
            February 6, 2022

            Yes Jerry I will do all you demand.
            Any other orders?
            PS
            Now you agree with LL and me when now you change your tune to say “excessive legislation”
            First you said deregulation would be “an utter disaster”
            Hilarious

          5. jerry
            February 6, 2022

            @Peter2; “Hilarious” you say, indeed you are!

          6. Peter2
            February 6, 2022

            Oh well.
            Better than your usual abuse.

      5. oldwulf
        February 5, 2022

        @Andy
        1. Maybe most of us felt that Mr Johnson was the best person to get us out of the EU. He probably was.

        2. However, Mr Johnson has probably not been the best person to make the best use of our new found freedoms out of the EU. It seems that Mr Sunak will not be either.

        3. I am sorry that workers are to be hit by an increase in National Insurance. I believe that the proposed increase should be withdrawn. The whole system (including NI) is overdue a review.

      6. Original Richard
        February 5, 2022

        Andy,

        “Yes”, the Conservative Party won an 80 seat majority at the last GE.

        But they’re not in control of our country and its policies. We have a weak PM who has been tucked up by the pro-EU Marxist fifth column that is the civil service together with their comrades in our quangos and institutions.

        Hence we have the BEIS Net Zero Strategy designed to destroy our economy. Net Zero Watch say that through an FoI request they have gained access to the slides which caused the PM’s damascene conversion to being green. They claim the slides are “selective” and “edited”.

        We have out-of-control immigration designed to destroy our culture and social cohesion. The head of the UK Border Force until just recently described borders as a “pain”.

      7. John C.
        February 5, 2022

        For once, a pleasing comment, though you only made it to make us envious of your astonishing wealth. But you know, there are no taxes on fantasies.

    4. Amanda
      February 5, 2022

      Exactly; at the moment the UK is like an aeroplane with a kamikaze pilot being directed by the siren voices of the WEF. Many of us have seen the pain and discord that is wrought by inflation, which then allows workers with muscle to use that to gain more – I’m not sure the state of the UK people, brought low by covid and other mismanagement would stand this. To deliberately allow inflation, whilst sabotaging our energy supplies is simply malfeasance. The sensible heads in the Conservative Party MUST do something about it NOW before it is too late: and globalist Rishi who ‘spouts’ WEF slogans is NOT the answer but part of the kamikaze team !!

    5. William Long
      February 5, 2022

      If you are misguided enough to rely on the Conservative party under this leadership, you will be waiting a very long time.

    6. Fedupsoutherner
      February 5, 2022

      Oldwulf. I strongly agree.

    7. BurnatyreforGreta
      February 5, 2022

      Nothing can be done until the eco lunatics and Brussels Mol;es are purged from Whitehall

    8. Peter
      February 5, 2022

      Oldwulf,

      ‘We must therefore rely on the Conservative Party, at all levels, to make the required changes sooner rather than later.’

      Good luck with that.

      The Conservative Party is no longer fit for purpose. They still have some decent backbenchers of whom we hear little, but they are will not change the policies. Look around at the current cabinet or likely prime ministers. Same old, same old.

    9. jerry
      February 5, 2022

      @Oldwulf; Not so much incompetence, just a vacuum of policy, the Conservative & Unionist Party has become moribund post Thatcher, becoming more like the Tories each leader (even under Cameron), no longer Conservatives but “preservationists”, no longer electable, just perhaps the least worse option….

    10. Nottingham Lad Himself
      February 5, 2022

      Your last sentence explains exactly why this country is in the parlous mess that it is.

      Be gone – the lot of you.

      1. No Longer Anonymous
        February 5, 2022

        NLH

        They will be gone.

        Net Zero is the Tories’ Poll Tax x 1000.

        Boris may win over the ****ers with a few jibes at the despatch box but he won’t win over freezing voters.

      2. Peter2
        February 5, 2022

        You have your vote.
        I have mine.

    11. Mark B
      February 5, 2022

      They will change only when said change suits them. End of ! The pressure must come from us. There is choice, even if it is the Monster Raving Loony Party, there is choice !

      1. JoolsB
        February 5, 2022

        Trouble is we have to wait a couple of years before we get that choice and the damage the idiots in charge will do in the meantime doesn’t bear thinking about. And then the alternative is even more dire. Our only chance is if enough Tory MPs put the country before party and get rid of Johnson and his sycophants before it’s too late and more importantly replace him with an actual Tory.

  2. Oldtimer
    February 5, 2022

    Good questions, poor answers, dodgy data sums it up. It is what happens when you trap yourself in net zero dogma. The UK will pay a very high price for this misguided zealotry.

    1. Atlas
      February 5, 2022

      Agreed. Sir John seems to be fighting a lonely battle for joined-up thinking.

  3. Mark B
    February 5, 2022

    Good morning.

    . . . promoting effective competition to deliver an affordable, secure, and reliable system consistent with our decarbonisation objectives.

    The killer line in that sentence which basically undermines all that was said right before it, is this bit : “. . . consistent with our decarbonisation objectives.”

    What that means is, climate change and Net Zero comes first you peasants !

    We all know an insane, self destructive, eco zealotry has gripped our government and is driving policy. I also learned that the new rules in the Highway Code were, effectively, written by pedestrian and cyclist pressure / lobby groups. If true this further highlights how our government is run and why so many policies are just so daft, like putting men in womens prisons just because they identify as a woman. And so on.

    Governments need to stop listening to these unelected and unaccountable siren voices and just get on with the job of fulfilling their election manifesto promises to the people (the majority) who put them there.

    1. turboterrier
      February 5, 2022

      Mark B
      It is a travesty that we cannot vote on who is in the civil service once they reach elevated positions. They should be on 5 year contracts and be accountablefor any performance misdemeanors same as politicians.

  4. turboterrier
    February 5, 2022

    Well that’s it then?
    It has gone out of the different ranges of silliness to becoming a tad frightening.
    More confirmation that Net Zero will be the catalyst for the destruction of our manufacturing base.
    Cannot believe we are importing so many key commodities which we used to manufacture. Obviously they are cheap but it’s no wonder when our energy supplies are so expensive.
    Why cannot the government see it?
    Levelling Up will require real skilled jobs to generate real growth, what an opportunity they are ignoring.
    It will all end in tears.

  5. lifelogic
    February 5, 2022

    The UK energy policy is clearly insane and has been for at least 25 years. But then so is the Sunak’s tax and regulate to death economic policy, its housing policy, its open border no deterrent immigration policy, the employment regulations, the let’s cause inflation agenda, the state virtual monopoly education and NHS policies, the unfair competition from the BBC propaganda unit policy


    1. formula57
      February 5, 2022

      @ lifelogic + 1

      – but should I ever be riding the train between London and Birmingham, my journey might be twenty minutes quicker.

      1. Mitchel
        February 5, 2022

        If you have a spare eight minutes go to Youtube and have a look at a short film produced by the B1M specialist construction channel called:”Why Russia is building a New Silk Road-Russia’s $110 bn Arctic megaports.”(19/1/22).

        Russia is creating a route that will redirect a significant portion of East-West trade to Russia’s benefit-for roughly the same cost(at last count)as HS2,a glorified rail equivalent of a Zil lane.

      2. Lifelogic
        February 5, 2022

        If and when it is ever actually finish – but even then only if you live near Euston and want to go to near Curzon St station (or visa-versa). High Speed trains need very few stops to be high speed – so end connection journeys are longer and thus door to door journeys are then often much longer too. If they are ever to recover the cost they will have to be vastly expensive too and certainly not remotely green.

  6. BOF
    February 5, 2022

    ‘Global gas prices’. ‘Global markets’. The mantra adopted by BBC and the rest of out media. Never a mention the the US is coping very well and Biden has issued licences for fracking and drilling faster than Trump!

    No wonder we are a basket case and set to get worse, sacrificed to the great false gods of climate change and net zero by incompetents.

    1. Timaction
      February 5, 2022

      We need alternatives to this rabble in Westminster. The legacies are all the same, think the same, the science is settled when it’s not. We need to break the mould and vote for anything else.

      1. Fedupsoutherner
        February 5, 2022

        Time action. Absolutely right.

      2. Andy
        February 5, 2022

        There is an alternative to your rabble. You just don’t vote for the alternative. The science on man made climate change has been settled for 30 years.

        1. oldtimer
          February 5, 2022

          For “science” on man made climate change read “propaganda”.

          1. MFD
            February 5, 2022

            Well said Oldtimer. There is no such thing as man made climate change. Nature always wavers but stays balanced!

        2. Original Richard
          February 5, 2022

          Andy : “The science on man made climate change has been settled for 30 years.”

          In 1633 Pope Urban V111 appointed chief inquisitor Father Vincenzo Maculano to launch an inquisition of Galileo and order him to appear in the Holy Office to begin a trial for his Copernican ideas, ideas which were in contradiction to the then settled science of thousands of years.

          BTW, in the 1970s the BBC were trying to scare us into believing the next ice age was coming.

          1. lifelogic
            February 5, 2022

            +1

        3. Timaction
          February 5, 2022

          No it is not. Educate yourself, fool.

        4. No Longer Anonymous
          February 5, 2022

          Andy

          Maybe the science is settled, maybe it isn’t. (I disagree that it has been.)

          Whatever.

          Unilateral Net Zero is an idiot’s charter and that’s why you subscribe to it. *Unilateral* was not in the manifesto.

      3. Peter
        February 5, 2022

        Timaction,

        +1

      4. glen cullen
        February 5, 2022

        No10 is still behaving like it’s the prefects room at a public school
enough is enough we deserve better

    2. Lifelogic
      February 5, 2022

      +1

    3. Lifelogic
      February 5, 2022

      Not really a global price as transport and other cost can be very high. But even it they were we might at well make the profits here and have the jobs by producing the energy in the UK when we sensibly and profitably can do.

  7. Sea_Warrior
    February 5, 2022

    ‘The government are not targeting a specific capacity mix …’ Governments that take this laissez-faire approach deserve the severe political cosequences of a massive energy outage. I have no confidence in either Kwarteng or Hands and eco-zealots inside No 10 are leading us to disaster. The backbenchers, through the new policy commmittees, must now force change.. You have just enough time left in this parliament to do something with your majority – just!

    1. SM
      February 5, 2022

      +10

    2. Mark
      February 5, 2022

      I do not see how the government can think that the capacity can be delivered. If we take their 31GW and subtract 4GW for capacity in construction, and allow that it takes 4 years to go through planning and construction (the main capacity auctions are 4 years in advance), they will be needing to see something like 7GW a year entering the planning phase, and it will have to be rapid build, narrowing the technical choices. That they have no notion of how this might be delivered is even more frightening.

      The reality is that they expected at least 10GW to come from interconnectors, and perhaps now realise that supply is likely to be short on the Continent, so that additional interconnectors represent additional potential demand rather than supply during windless periods, yet the export earnings from periods of surplus wind will be zero or negative, because there will be surpluses on the Continent too.

      The Capacity Market has failed to deliver, because BEIS and National Grid have dictated far too low a level in their haste to undermine coal generators. 4 years is also too short a time horizon, as it is barely possible to plan and deliver even an OCGT plant in that timescale. It’s a badly designed system, bolted on to a badly designed balancing market that prioritises the most costly renewables and minimises the use of low cost dispatchable capacity from coal. Government micromanagement builds in failure.

      1. Mark
        February 5, 2022

        I should have noted that within the government 31GW figure is doubtless a large amount of battery storage – at least in terms of GW, where the pipeline has been described as high as 16 GW. That is now unlikely to be delivered because of the doubling of the cost of batteries. Most importantly, 16GW of batteries that only last a couple of hours before conking out is really no use in covering against a multi day shortage of wind. They might as well invest in chocolate teapots: there won’t be enough power to melt them. With the high battery cost there will be no incentive to increase battery durations. What matters is the ability to generate (batteries are in fact consumers of power because of round trip losses) on a sustained fully dispatchable basis. A reminder once again of Timera’s capacity projection showing large scale closures of fully dispatchable power. BEIS are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think that batteries and interconnectors are going to provide the cover when the wind isn’t blowing.

        https://timera-energy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Capacity-deficit.jpg

  8. Philip P.
    February 5, 2022

    Thank you for your persistence, Sir John, with these important questions. Unfortunately, Mr Hands seems to think he can get away with unsatisfactory answers, or even no actual answer at all in the last four cases you have given.
    He says ‘BEIS regularly publishes projections of energy demand’, and gives an overall figure for this. But when asked what proportion of domestic electricity demand will be domestic heating, he says the answer is unavailable. So either the BEIS didn’t show a breakdown of how it compiled the overall figure, or Mr Hands couldn’t trouble himself to look for it in the energy demand document. Either way, your questions are showing that our energy policy direction is not in competent hands (sorry, that pun was unintentional).

    1. James1
      February 5, 2022

      I believe there is a big shock coming to the Conservative Party at the next general election. Along the lines of the last Euro Elections. With the early tremors being felt in the elections being held in May this year.

      1. Mark B
        February 5, 2022

        +1

    2. Mickey Taking
      February 5, 2022

      Ministers enrolled on the Civil Service courses – starting with ‘Don’t ever give a direct accurate response’ to a question. Followed by ‘How to seemingly answer a question, but leave interpretation open in terms of detail, time and action’.

      1. [s]words
        February 6, 2022

        And never write
        ” I consider”
        but write
        ” It is considered.”
        Be concise as G Orwell said
        Less is more. The fewer words the better.
        My eyes glazed over the above blog.
        Took away only you dont like Hands.
        Only heard him speak once
        but took away he is good with words.
        Convert him.

  9. Donna
    February 5, 2022

    This and previous Governments refusal to use our own resources in the interests of our own people isn’t an accident, it’s deliberate.

    They are deliberately ramping up the cost of energy.

    They are delivering the UN / WEF’s Agenda, which requires “the little people” in the West to have a much lower standard of living.

    1. forthurst
      February 5, 2022

      We do not have treason laws. We need treason laws so that those who are trying to destroy us from within can be brought to justice. These troublemakers are using the Climate Hoax and Mass third world immigration because for some reason they hate the people who gave them succour in their darkest hour.

  10. DOM
    February 5, 2022

    I see no purpose or worth in such questions if those who wield real power over actual public policy are individuals beyond Parliamentary accountability and scrutiny. Whitehall officials in all departments of State acting politically and ideologically have become loose cannons. They must be named, shamed and held accountable for their destructive actions.

    Far better to do what Marxist Labour does and use Stalinist tactics rather than adhering to conventional process

  11. Mark J
    February 5, 2022

    This Government would rather impoverish the nation than remove the hated ‘green levy’. A levy that is now causing huge problems with energy prices.

    I’m sorry to say that Sunak’s solution is utter rubbish. Plus for him to say ‘we all have to get used to higher energy’, just goes to show he really doesn’t get it.

    Higher energy means that everything else will increase in price. Food, other goods, transport, etc, etc.

    Why are green initiatives always Government funded, or forced upon the consumer to fund? Why not the big business whom make huge profits, and in many cases don’t pay their fair share of tax to begin with.

    1. Mark B
      February 5, 2022

      +1

  12. Richard1
    February 5, 2022

    John Hopkins university in the US has produced a devastating study demonstrating the folly and uselessness of the lockdown policy. A conclusion which many had already reached by looking around the world comparing lockdown with non-lockdown regions and states. Why did we have this monumental and (with a few exceptions) global policy error? Largely due to groupthink by those experts selected to give advice, due to the ignoring, denigrating and traducing of other experts who did not support the lockdown policy. And of course due to the shrill, hyperbolic hysteria of much of the media and especially of the political left.

    It is likely that the same error is being made with net zero, which is of course the underlying explanation for all the problems you highlight in this and other pieces on the energy topic. These ministers above haven’t given proper replies to your questions, they’ve waffled and obfuscated. As they must do as facts, data and logic don’t support the policies being adopted.

    1. Wanderer
      February 5, 2022

      Well said.

    2. Andy
      February 5, 2022

      Interestingly the paper you cite – which has not been peer reviewed – does not say what you think it says.

      But we shouldn’t be surprised that you’re not a details man.

      Sometimes you need to read more than the angry headline in your favourite Brexit supporting rag.

      1. Hat man
        February 5, 2022

        Andy, you really shouldn’t accuse others without checking your facts. The meta-analysis paper says exactly what Richard 1 thinks it says. I quote the last two sentences of its abstract: ‘While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.’ That’s as Richard 1 summarised it, isn’t it?
        I suggest, Andy, you take your own advice and don’t just go on what your favourite ‘rag’ says. Always go to the primary source, which is freely available online.

        1. hefner
          February 6, 2022

          And have you checked what medical speciality the three authors actually have? They are a Senior Fellow at the very well known Cato Institute, one from the Center from Political Studies, Copenhagen and one from Lund University, Sweden. None of them medical, epidemiology or public health expert, but all three economists having picked and chosen the papers on which to base their conclusion.

          I would hope the usual contributors on this site throwing economists to hell every other day would show the same regard to these three, or at least question how out of 18,590 previous papers related to lockdowns only 34 were deemed ‘good enough’ to support the conclusion that ‘lockdowns did not reduce Covid-19 mortality’.

      2. Richard1
        February 5, 2022

        You can’t take it can you? The lockdown policy of which you were one of the shrill leftwing advocates on this blog has had terrible consequences. Including for health. And it failed even on its own terms. The truth is coming out and you can’t stop it.

        1. Andy
          February 5, 2022

          It is funny watching you Brexitists ranting on about truth.

          The truth is that you voted for this miserable failed government whose Covid failure has killed 157,000 of our fellow citizens so far. Most of them around your sort of age.

          1. Hat man
            February 5, 2022

            Oh dear, you can’t even get the fictional figures the right way round, Andy. In the media story, it was 175,000, not 157,000, remember? In reality, the government’s figure of Covid deaths with no other health condition on the death certificate was about 17,000, as acknowledged in a recent FOI request to the Office for National Statistics.
            We are all now much better informed than we were at the start of the Covid crisis regarding the lethality of the virus, so there would be nothing wrong with you saying ‘When the facts change, I change my mind’. Give it a try.

          2. Richard1
            February 5, 2022

            It’s funny watching your rage. You simply can’t argue your case using facts data and logic. (Like you I am middle aged).

      3. hefner
        February 6, 2022

        The original paper is on sites.krieger.jhu.edu ‘A Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on Covid-19 Mortality’, J.Herby, L.Jonung & S.H.Hanke, SAE, No.200, January 2022.

      4. hefner
        February 6, 2022

        forbes.com ‘Did so-called ‘John Hopkins Study’ really show that lockdowns were ineffective against Covid-19?’ B.C. Lee, 06/02/2022.

        Please read the original report by Herby, Jonung & Hanke and the Forbes contribution and make your own mind 


  13. No Longer Anonymous
    February 5, 2022

    Voters are in for the most terrible times.

    1. Andy
      February 5, 2022

      True. Funny, isn’t it?

      Voting has consequences and now you get to learn this the hard way.

      I have my popcorn ready. Posh popcorn, of course.

      1. No Longer Anonymous
        February 5, 2022

        Andy

        I don’t think you got the potency of my one-liner. Pertaining to the lunacy of unilateral net-zero, which is your idea and the Tories’ new Poll Tax x 1000.

        Enjoy you sugar-free popcorn. (Thinking of your diabetes and blood pressure.)

        I prefer running, which I am now able to do again having self-healed a leg injury despite the NHS being useless.

        PS, I was at another funeral yesterday. Yet another victim of YOUR lockdown.

        Yet again ….masks on at the service… masksoff at the wake. Madness !

      2. Nottingham Lad Himself
        February 5, 2022

        Sadly, Andy, the victims of this shower are often people – the young – who did not vote for them.

        1. No Longer Anonymous
          February 5, 2022

          Generationally divisive, NHL.

          Since 1997 (and whilst in the EU for the most part) young people like my own sons have been priced out of the housing market despite being highly qualified. They have also been exposed to rising knife crime.

          Please don’t claim the moral high ground, because we all vote in the interests of our children. We may not think in a way that you like but we used legal and appropriate means and voted based on what was on offer, not for some extremist fringe (the BNP, NF gained no traction here in the UK as similar have in the wider EU.)

          To caricature us as youth-hating bigots is lazy, incorrect and dishonest and is designed to nullify and criminalise our votes and to foment hatred against us.

        2. Peter2
          February 5, 2022

          Why come on here and post 30 times a day when you think everyone except you is a “shower”?
          It’s just trolling really.

        3. Mickey Taking
          February 6, 2022

          Oh dear God, now you reach for victimhood of those 40(?) years younger than you?
          Desperate times, Martin – desperate.

  14. Walt
    February 5, 2022

    Thank you for asking the questions. A pity the government doesn’t know at least some of the answers and that those it does know offer such poor cheer. Should not HM Opposition be holding the government to account in these matters and in its failure to honour its manifesto?

    1. alan jutson
      February 5, 2022

      Walt
      Indeed but it seems they are more concerned about so called Partygate, and now jimmy Saville.

      Just shows how out of touch most politicians have now become to the real problems we have as a Country..

    2. Timaction
      February 5, 2022

      It’s called group think. They’re all the same.

      1. Mickey Taking
        February 6, 2022

        The “THINK” slogan was first used by Thomas J. Watson in December 1911, while managing the sales and advertising departments at the National Cash Register Company, eventually becoming IBM, you may have heard of?
        At an uninspiring sales meeting, Watson interrupted, saying “The trouble with every one of us is that we don’t think enough. We don’t get paid for working with our feet — we get paid for working with our heads”. Watson then wrote THINK on the easel.
        A very good slogan for 10 Downing St.

  15. Bryan Harris
    February 5, 2022

    A catalogue of evasion.

    Two things are totally clear:

    -1- HMG will do nothing to stabalise energy supply and prices because high prices and limited supply fit in with the policies relating to net-zero;
    -2- Given the enormous sums of money thrown away in every direction by HMG in the last 2 years, without checks in place nor an adequate way to retrieve any of it, it does appear that they are working towards a new economic structure that requires the country and individuals to shoulder a gigantic tax burden.

    We are now enter phase-2

    HMG is certainly not doing enough to make use of local energy supplies, which is more than enough for us to mistrust their motives.

    1. Dennis
      February 5, 2022

      HMG? shouldn’t that be OMG?

      1. Mickey Taking
        February 6, 2022

        or even ‘anybody’s God?’

  16. alan jutson
    February 5, 2022

    All good questions John, you got a couple of answers, but nothing from Greg Hands other than he expects electricity use in transport to triple (if I read it correctly)

    Looks like no Government information is available on figures for importing and exporting of petrochemicals, if that is the case, how does HMRC calculate the tax due and paid, surely they must have a record on file, or do they not have a clue either.!

    Whilst the answers are quite shameful, please do keep on asking the simple questions John, as you are starting to expose a disgraceful level of total and utter incompetence, not only in people, but with Government statistics.

    I see the Select Committee were given the wrong figures relating on the cost of housing illegal immigrants in hotels earlier this week.
    The ÂŁ1.2 million a day original figure, was later up uprated to ÂŁ4.5 million a day a couple of days later.
    Staggering incompetence, makes you wonder if you can believe any Government figures at all.

    1. Mark
      February 5, 2022

      The transport figures hide a lot of awkward reality – interesting that thy chose to describe electricity in oil equivalent units rather than TWh that you might expect. At present the bulk of electricity use in transport is for trains. 20 years ago we were using 8-9TWh a year, but that fell (I can’t remember why it should have done so) to a low of 4TWh in 2004-11. It grew to 5.8TWh ahead of the pandemic, with a part of that growth no doubt due to EVs, but also to e.g. electrification of the GWR route to Wales. Reduced services due to WFH etc. mean it has fallen again to around 5TWh. Meanwhile oil use for transport before the pandemic was running at about 50 million tonnes a year, including 12 million tonnes for aviation and another 2 million tonnes for marine bunkers. So 1.6 million tonnes oil equivalent looks rather inconsequential. If we use the 12MWh per tonne of oil equivalent conversion factor in government statistics, then the 564 ktoe forecast for this year is about 6.77TWh. Much will depend on whether full train timetables resume, while the later forecast is 19.4TWh, or about 2.2GW of continuous supply, or say 6GW of overnight capacity use when demand is otherwise lower. With approximately 250billion vehicle miles a year being driven in cars, if we assume 3 miles per kWh and knock off 5TWh for rail, it would account for 43 bn vehicle miles, or about 17%. We are still going to be using a lot of petrol and diesel.

      1. Original Richard
        February 5, 2022

        Mark,

        Thanks for your analysis.

    2. rose
      February 5, 2022

      “The ÂŁ1.2 million a day original figure, was later up uprated to ÂŁ4.5 million a day a couple of days later.
      Staggering incompetence, makes you wonder if you can believe any Government figures at all.2

      Perhaps they were confusing the ÂŁ1.2 million figure with the ÂŁ1.7 billion figure for the annual cost of this racket.

  17. agricola
    February 5, 2022

    We would all appreciate reassurance that we had a coherent energy policy in the UK. From where I sit it looks like a shambles governed by a messianic adherence to the green religion.

  18. Andy
    February 5, 2022

    Surprisingly I have only actually be to Belgium three times. Though one of them was a particularly enjoyable weekend in Brussels and Antwerp. Pretty places – both of them.

    But Belgium is interesting as it has now axed VAT on energy bills. It is in the EU and it has axed VAT on energy bills. Something the Brexitists said we couldn’t do.

    It’s not just Belgium. Spain has done it too. Spain is also in the EU. Meanwhile France – also in the EU – has capped its energy price rises to 4%.

    Here the billionaire man of the people Chancellor has told you the Brexit price hikes in energy and everything else are going to hurt you. They won’t hurt him – but they will hurt you. So what’s he doing about it? Making you pay it all! He’ll just give you slightly longer to do it.

    EU countries are helping their people deal with rising prices. The Brexitists are helping the shareholders.

    1. Mickey Taking
      February 5, 2022

      interesting you mention Belgium and Spain, low users.
      Italy increase electricity 55% and gas by 42%. German home heating/power increased by 101% in November,and food prices went up by 6%.

    2. Dave Andrews
      February 5, 2022

      The Remainers were helping the shareholders before the Brexitists took charge.

    3. Sea_Warrior
      February 5, 2022

      You forgot to blame pensioners. You’re slipping.

      1. MFD
        February 5, 2022

        đŸ‘đŸ»SEA-WARRIOR.

    4. miami.mode
      February 5, 2022

      Andy, the Belgian axe of VAT on energy prices is temporary, exactly the same as our own Labour government reduced VAT in 2008/09.

    5. a-tracy
      February 5, 2022

      Andy, I read in Reuters that Belgium had merely reduced the 21% VAT it was charging on energy bills down to 6%. The uk charges 5%.

    6. oldtimer
      February 5, 2022

      The EU has also declared gas as “green” energy. They also took great care to exclude super yachts and private jets from the criteria that will incur new energy taxes.

    7. No Longer Anonymous
      February 5, 2022

      Sounds like you went to the usual tourist haunts, Andy.

      Did you get a little bronze mannequin de pis key chain perchance ?

      1. miami.mode
        February 5, 2022

        NLA, it was his pilgrimage to the Berlaymont. On t’internet it states that Berlaymont was knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Also a bailiff of the county of Namur. In 1567, he became a member of the much-dreaded Council of Troubles. How appropriate! The EU commission must have the most extreme sense of humour.

  19. Sea_Warrior
    February 5, 2022

    I see that Lord Ashcroft is confirming what we all suspected.

  20. majorfrustration
    February 5, 2022

    The only thing this government gets should be the push. Surely there must be some politicians with brains and the courage to take action against the current stupidity. Maybe not.!

  21. William Long
    February 5, 2022

    In other words: ‘I am sorry, I haven’t a clue!’, and what is worse, cannot be bothered to find out.

  22. agricola
    February 5, 2022

    You had the solution spelt out to you yesterday but it still sits mouldering awaiting moderation, such that I suspect you do not want to hear the answers. I would better advise you to stand up in the HoC and spell out the answers or take to the media and spell them out. GB News would make time for you I’m sure. Asking questions in the HoC only highlights that you are trying to do your job, but it fails to achieve coherent answers. Ministers do not answer question, they play ping pong hoping you and we will get bored. We do get bored, but only until the bill drops on the mat.

    1. R.Grange
      February 5, 2022

      +1

    2. Mark B
      February 5, 2022

      +1

      Let me know when your post comes out of moderation, I would like to read it as I am sure many here would.

  23. George Brooks.
    February 5, 2022

    Those in charge of this vital part of the UK’s infrastructure clearly have very little knowledge of it and zero empathy with it’s importance. All you have got is a bland civil service answer to each of your questions.

    If this is allowed to continue we will be in a very sorry state well before 2030. Cock up the energy policy and you kick the economy into touch and wreck the lives of us all.

    Something more than ignorance and/or stupidity is driving this country down to ruin. Is it outside infiltration into the government departments or is it a PM going through a ”mid-life crisis (male menopause)” and being held to ransom by those nearest and dearest to him?

    Whatever the reason, that whole department needs to be cleared out and replaced with people who understand all aspects of the subject and are not wedded to impossible ‘Net zero’ target time scales.

    Open up the gas fields. It is better to be criticised for a ‘u’ turn than drive the Nation into poverty.

    1. Timaction
      February 5, 2022

      Indeed. Janet Daley spelt it out in the Telegraph today with the total incompetence of this Government and Lord Ashcrofts bew book is enlightening. The clown has to go and replaced by a conservative. Sadly very few of those in the Tory Party.

  24. Iain Moore
    February 5, 2022

    You sound about as happy as the rest of us, but thank you for your persistence, what you reveal can either be characterised as complacency and incompetence , or else malicious intent to do our country harm, sacrificing it for their new green religion , where like religious zealots through time have always justified damaging acts to show they are true believers.

    1. Nottingham Lad Himself
      February 5, 2022

      You won.

      You have brexit.

      Rejoice.

  25. a-tracy
    February 5, 2022

    From gov.uk The GGL Green Gas levy rates are: for the first scheme year (30 November 2021 to 31 March 2022) – 0.484p per meter per day, equivalent to 59p per meter over the period for the second scheme year (1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023) – 0.576p per meter per day, equivalent to ÂŁ2.10 per meter over the period
    Summary
    Year 1 Year 2
    Daily levy rate 0.484p 0.576p
    DM Jan “green stealth taxes represent a significant factor. A fat 15.3 per cent — £195 a year — goes on ‘environmental and social costs’. On electricity bills alone, this tax is now a huge 25.5 per cent. This covers a bewildering and ever-growing number of green schemes” — yet this is still not enough for Extinction Rebellion. Isn’t this 15.3% just levelling back up to the vat rate of 20% as they charge 5% on domestic customers bills and then a whopping 35.3% to business users.

    1. a-tracy
      February 5, 2022

      Part 2 just looked up some of the things it is spent on: Warm Home Discount

      This pays out grants of £140 to 2.2 million low-income households. The £300 million cost is added to the bills of other consumers, so it’s a welcome relief for the less well-off but yet another charge on those who don’t qualify.

      Energy Company Obligation

      This compels energy companies to subsidise work to improve homes’ efficiency, by installing insulation. The grants are available only for households which have low incomes or are on benefits.

      I tell you what John more and more people are going to start to tot up all these extra payments to low income households and figure out they’re better off doing less for themselves!

      1. Mark B
        February 5, 2022

        And that Tracy is why Socialism always, always fails. The few who contribute the most just get fed up and stop bothering. So everyone suffers because those on the lower end of the scale do not, and will not get up off their backsides to take up the slack.

        1. No Longer Anonymous
          February 5, 2022

          Mark B

          Or they move their activities into the black market.

          That’s why Boris slipped in his aspiration for a “cash free” society bit in a recent speech.

          The man is a menace and yet a few jokes at the despatch box and he is free.

          Well.

          Tory MPs are going to be fighting the next general election against a backdrop of grinding and hopeless poverty caused by their leader.

        2. alan jutson
          February 5, 2022

          +1

        3. Timaction
          February 5, 2022

          Indeed. Socialism only works until they run out of other people’s money. People are becoming aware of the stealth taxes hidden in their energy bills. Big vote winner along with banning ice cars and gas boilers. I’ll be glad to see the backs of the legacies. Sir Nigel will have a field day. How is the Governments mass migration policy help our carbon footprint?

  26. Sakara Gold
    February 5, 2022

    Hands was interviewed on BBC R4 yesterday, where he stated that the oil majors would not be subjected to the additional, 75% windfall tax on their profits that are demanded by many across the political spectrum.

    He pointed out that Shell, BP etc will pay more corporation tax on their profits, that the Treasury will recive more Petroleum Revenue Tax from the N Sea and of course, the additional VAT at the pumps and from domestic heating. This is the reason shale gas and petrol/diesel are cheaper in America – less tax.

    Clearly, BEIS in conjunction with the Treasury have decided to keep the additional tax windfall and spend a fraction of it on yet more subsidy to the energy companies – to be clawed back over the next 5 years from domestic bills. When this all kicks in later in the year, along with the rise in NI etc and the public realise how they have been ripped off, we can expect a change of government at the next GE.

    1. The Prangwizard
      February 5, 2022

      Sakara – if you think it is legitimate to take big profits in extra tax, will you pay them money to cover their big losses?

      1. agricola
        February 5, 2022

        PW,
        To the best of my knowledge the profits of the mentioned companies are known and taxable. Tax is not charged on losses.
        The ones that UK government needs to go after are those who trade in the UK but incorporate in tax havens. Also tax haven incorporated companies who supply the UK branch with goods at inflated prices so that they make little profit in the UK because the profit is taken from the inlated goods and retained in the tax haven. Think about it next time you buy a coffee in the high street.

      2. Sakara Gold
        February 5, 2022

        @Prangwizard
        No. What a stupid question.

        1. Peter2
          February 5, 2022

          SG
          Perfectly logical comment by PW
          If the state can decide what are “excessive profits” (profits which they tax anyway) and take an additional amount in tax, then it is logical that if a business makes unusual excessive losses that the state would then do the opposite and refund them.

    2. Mark
      February 5, 2022

      You mean an increase in subsidy for green projects, which are being propped up by carbon taxes that give them comfortably over ÂŁ30/MWh of extra cushion now that prices have reach ÂŁ90/tonne CO2e for UKA carbon taxes.

  27. XY
    February 5, 2022

    “…and agreed that not intervening in the UK Emissions Trading Scheme was the right course of action in both December and January. The Authority issued a statement after both decisions, with its reasons, on gov.uk.”

    As our host says, the answers taken as a whole add up to inconsistent, illogical waffle.

    The above is an odd statement which makes it sound as though the govt are restraining themselves from embarking on an intervention – which sounds… almost conservative – when in fact they are restraining themselves from ending an existing intervention. Which sounds as socialist as the rest of what this lot are doing and is in fact precisely the reverse of the impression given by the cunninig Sir Humphrey wording.

    1. Mark
      February 5, 2022

      I note he failed to do the courtesy of providing any link to the answer. THere weasel words can be found here:

      https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-emissions-trading-scheme-ets-authority-cost-containment-mechanism-decisions/uk-ets-authority-statement-cost-containment-mechanism-decision-january-2022

      The UK ETS Authority recognises the sensitivity of the issues under consideration in the context of concern about energy prices and determination to tackle climate change. Ministers discussed these issues, acknowledging that any final decision was finely balanced. Following debate on these points the conclusion reached was that the UK ETS Authority should not intervene at this time, having also taken this approach following the December triggering of the CCM. This decision, like that in December, is aimed at upholding the objectives of the UK ETS as a market-based approach to reducing emissions and incentivising participants to find the most cost-effective solutions to decarbonise.

      a.k.a. stuff you, you can eat carbon allowances at twice the price. It makes our green troughing so much more profitable.

  28. Mickey Taking
    February 5, 2022

    Sir John will you be showing us the letter you got from PM Johnson, urging support?

    Reply It did not say that

    1. Mickey Taking
      February 6, 2022

      Sorry. I stand corrected. Did it say ‘ you don’t have to support me, if you don’t want to’?

      Again – will you be showing it to us?

    2. Mickey Taking
      February 6, 2022

      A Google search reveals it.
      Johnson says MPs will have a direct line (just one?) into 10 Downing St.
      I hope they have recruited some call centre staff to field the calls, it could get very busy with more than one line required.

  29. agricola
    February 5, 2022

    While it is nice for conservative MPs to receive a letter from the PM, and having read it I do not see any solutions to the policy and political crisis that government does not even aclnowledge it is in.
    I read that Andrew Griffith MP is to be his new Director of Policy. I know he has a business background, but also note he has never been a member of the ERG, The Spartans, or Buddies. Consequently one cannot make a guess at what his views are on anything other than that perhaps the PM consideds him a safs pair of hands.
    There is to be a proliferation of policy committees. The standard way of damping down any radical (Conservative) thought, lest it frightens the horses. The way to produce a string of camels when we need Red Rum. One vital factor the PM should keep at the front of his mind is that it is not MPs he has to please, it is the Electorate.
    I would point out at this point that I am not against Boris remaining as PM. He is the only option, but needs constant reminders that he needs to act like a Conservative. Those reminders are more likely to come from the ERG, and Spartans than from an array of committees.
    The solutions to where we find ourselves are no secret, having been delineated by this diary and many of its contributors. If I see them being put into action I will be supportive. If we continue to sink into a mire of political potage I will not. Above all we need leadership that is dynamic and at least 75% right for GB Ltd and its citizens, and said citizens need to see it is working. The alternative is catastrophy.

  30. Original Richard
    February 5, 2022

    Question 4 requesting what electricity generating capacity is planned by 2030 excluding wind and solar:

    Well, we know the only planned nuclear will be the 3.2GW Hinkley Point C, if it runs on time, unlike 3 of its 4 its predecessors, having shut down 7.8GW nuclear generating capacity between now and 2030. A very, very bad mistake.

    And “interconnectors” (from unreliable EU suppliers) and “storage capacity” (undefined) are of course NOT electricity generators.

    The question needs to be asked again, specifically asking if any fossil fuel generators are planned in order to keep the lights on when the wind doesn’t blow and sun isn’t shining.

    There isn’t any spare renewable energy capacity anyway which can be used for storage whatever the technology selected. The 40GW of planned installed offshore wind capacity will only provide 20GW of dispatchable electrical energy.

    1. Mark
      February 5, 2022

      I doubt that 40GW of offshore wind will provide more than 1-2GW of truly dispatchable capacity. We have had less than 0.5GW from 24.5GW of wind. It will however also generate large surpluses that will have to be curtailed when it is windy. At least the new CFD contracts pay nothing when prices are negative, but we will also have to watch for gaming the market to keep it at barely positive levels to maximise CFD subsidies – if indeed CFDs ever get taken up. With no revenue from ever rising hours of surplus production there will be a need to gain much higher revenues when production is lower, pushing up the strike price they need for a CFD to be economic.

  31. Shirley M
    February 5, 2022

    It’s really good to know that at least one MP cares about the UK and it’s citizens, and has the intelligence to see the disaster that is looming, but unless many more MP’s join Sir John in forcing change then the country has no hope. The only reason the Conservatives may get votes is because the opposition is even worse. This makes the future appear even bleaker.

    I am normally an optimist but can see nothing in the future to be optimistic about, thanks to this government. I remember the old saying ‘if you cannot do good, at least do no harm’. The illegals have done very well out of this government, and no doubt the favoured noisy minorities, but the greater majority have been betrayed badly and will suffer great harm.

    1. MFD
      February 5, 2022

      Agreed 100% Shirley M

  32. X-Tory
    February 5, 2022

    An absolutely appalling set of answers (or rather, ‘non-answers’) from the minister. Really shocking. I will not take up your time with a full list of criticisms – which no doubt you have in mind too – safe to say that he refused to answer your question about the carbon price without even the courtesy of giving you the reasoning provided by the UK Emissions Trading Scheme Authority or even providing a link to where you might find this. Such a comtemptuous reply is genuinely offensive. Also he couldn’t even be bothered to pretend to answer your questions about UK and US industrial gas prices or the potential loss of UK businesses. He just dismissed your concerns in as off-hand a manner as could be imagined. Utterly disgraceful. I don’t know why you put up with it.

  33. glen cullen
    February 5, 2022

    Censorship 101 – ban or censor news that doesn’t show government in good light
    Illegal immigration crossings yesterday = 163 ?
    The Politburo would be proud (don’t mention the ‘online bill’)

  34. Mark
    February 5, 2022

    I think you might have had more luck posing some of your questions to the Chemical Industries Association. I rather suspect that talk of modest growth relates to revenues as prices are pushed up, rather than underlying volumes. Their latest press brief makes clear that energy costs are a vital issue.

    https://www.cia.org.uk/news/details/Rising-costs-behind-a-slowdown-in-growth-for-key-UK-industry-

    Of course, as we know from the case of fertiliser manufacture, simply hedging input costs is no guarantee of continued production. Firstly, the hedges eventually run out anyway (or worse, eventually become heavily cash consuming in collateral and eventually loss-making if taken too far forward), and secondly it can make more sense to close operations and take the profit on the hedged supplies by selling them back to the market if customers will not buy at the higher prices needed to make more profit by continuing in production.

    I note that the Chemical Industries association was unimpressed by the bureaucrats’ desire to impose more regulatory burden under UK REACH than under the EU version. Time for a Brexit dividend, and working out how we can be less demanding than the EU to promote more activity in the UK – only worthwhile if we can sort out energy costs, of course.

  35. ChrisS
    February 5, 2022

    The answer given by Greg Hands on 24 January 2022 stating that 31GW of extra non-renewable capacity will be added by 2030 makes it obvious that they are relying on interconnectors to provide the vast majority of that power. Buying power from European countries already way over-reliant on Russian gas is never going to be a solution.

    The government simply have no intention of delivering extra home-generated capacity that must be non renewable in order to be reliable. We must retain the coal-fired and nuclear stations due to be axed before 2030.

    Perhaps you should now ask what the cost is likely to be to extend the life of the current nuclear stations until new replacements are delivering reliable power ?

  36. Martyn G
    February 5, 2022

    Slightly OT, here is more evidence of the fact that the EU effectively still rules a part of the UK i.e Northern Island.
    Reform of red diesel and other rebated fuels entitlement Updated 29 November 2021.
    At Budget 2021, the government announced its decision not to change the treatment of private pleasure craft in Great Britain, where they will continue to be able to use red diesel and pay their fuel supplier the difference between the red diesel rate and that for white diesel on the proportion they intend to use for propulsion.
    The government response to the summer 2020 consultation also announced that from no later than June this year private pleasure craft in Northern Ireland will have to use white diesel to propel their craft.
    This will achieve consistency with the 2019 judgment by the Court of Justice of the European Union and ensure the UK meets its international obligations under the terms of the Northern Ireland Protocol to the Withdrawal Agreement.
    It will also align with fuel use by private pleasure craft in the Republic of Ireland, which should make it simpler for private pleasure craft users to access the fuel they need if they sail between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (and vice versa).
    Alongside that change, the government will introduce a new relief scheme under which private pleasure craft users in Northern Ireland will be able to claim a relief for the proportion of their fuel that will be used for non-propulsion, meaning they will not pay a higher rate of duty than they currently do on this fuel.
    It could not be clearer that NI and our government continues to be rules by the EU. So much for Brexit, eh?

  37. Mark
    February 5, 2022

    I have prepared a mouseover chart of electricity demand by broad sector going back to 1998 here:

    https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Q3Ih2/1/

    It shows the sad decline of the iron and steel industry, the recent big hit to shops and offices and schools, the minimal scale of electrification of transport (and that is still mainly trains), significant declines since the peak in 2001 for wider industry, and some reduction in domestic demand on the back of more efficient appliances (plasma TVs were big electricity gulpers) and LED lighting, but a recent rise on the back of WFH and lockdowns.

    1. Mark
      February 6, 2022

      In similar vein I have produced some charts on our gas position. This one using monthly data shows how when we were self sufficient, we relied on the tremendous production flexibility of some North Sea fields supplemented by small amounts of summer dominated exports to handle huge swings in seasonal demand: the fields were our interseasonal storage. The difference between winter and summer was of the order of 200TWh, so you would have needed 100TWh of storage filled over the summer to meet winter demand if production were steady otherwise. We have now switched to using imports to handle the seasonal swings.

      https://image.vuukle.com/9ffc6604-feed-474e-a82d-c2de2f561502-29f09797-8211-49d1-bebc-9c78baf01a3e

      Next a focus on how sectoral demand has changed compared with production levels. It is interesting to note how as we ceased to be self-sufficient and prices started rising to be less competitive there appears to have been a dip in industrial demand and demand from generators, with a further erosion of industry after the financial crisis. However, the main swing was in electricity generation use as production continued to fall and import dependence to rise, exacerbated by the high prices after the Fukushima accident that promoted coal switching for electricity. Coal closures then see some demand rebound before the pandemic related dip. The chart ends with the sharp drop in production due to delayed North Sea maintenance and the lack of new fields coming onstream, and a further bounce in generation demand caused by lack of wind.

      https://image.vuukle.com/9ffc6604-feed-474e-a82d-c2de2f561502-c4f3e042-2291-42d2-ba60-ce732a05221b

      Finally, a chart showing international gas benchmark prices from different regions including JKM, the Japan/Korea Market, Henry Hub in the USA, UK NBP prices and Dutch TTF, and the German import price average. When we were self sufficient our prices were the lowest of all those markers. Now that the US (and Canada) are self sufficient, their prices are lowest. Importers far from the marginal sources of gas they need must pay top dollar to secure supplies.

      https://image.vuukle.com/9ffc6604-feed-474e-a82d-c2de2f561502-154aa79e-273b-4314-a6a0-69d606780b32

  38. rose
    February 5, 2022

    It is looking a bit like Reform In Name Only at no 10. Not only is GH dripping wet and a genuflecter to BLM, but he isn’t even loyal to the PM.

  39. Ian miller
    February 6, 2022

    Sir John,
    The lack of sustainability and security of energy supply in the by now mature renewable industries of wind, and solar strongly suggests that ALL subsidies should now cease as a matter of urgency. Wind and Solar fail on reliability and cost, while their allegedly supportive battery technology has over the years similarly failed on insufficiency and cost grounds.
    Were we to take fracking for gas and Rolls Royce’s small nuclear reactors seriously and at scale, the price of gas would quickly fall to the previously reasonable market levels we enjoyed before.
    The fundamental cause of our projected inflation would be addressed, while the value of our exports would become competitive again.
    It seems that today’s classically educated politicians possess neither the nous nor the guts to grasp this very simple economic reality staring them in the face !

Comments are closed.