|
|
1O DOWNING STREET
LONDON SW1A 2AA
www.gov.uk/number10
| THE PRIME MINISTER | 8 September 2022 |
Dear Colleague,
SUPPORTING PEOPLE AND BUSINESSES WITH THEIR ENERGY BILLS
On the steps of Downing Street on Tuesday, I pledged to take action to bring down energy bills. Today, within 48 hours of taking office, I have delivered on that promise.
This Government will bring forward emergency legislation to establish a new Energy Price Guarantee which will ensure that the average British household pays no more than £2,500 per year for their energy bills for the next two years from October.
This will save the average household at least £1,000 per year – giving certainty on energy prices so people can get through the winter, slowing inflation and making incomes go further. We will fully compensate energy suppliers for the cost of this emergency action – with the Chancellor setting out further details in the fiscal statement later this month. The new guarantee will apply to households in Great Britain, with the same level of support made available to households in Northern Ireland.
As part of the Energy Price Guarantee, we are temporarily suspending green levies – contributing £150 to the £1,000 yearly average saving. At this difficult time, it is right that households do not bear the cost of low-carbon electricity generation, but instead benefit from it.
And we will maintain the £400 Energy Bill Support Scheme for everyone, and the £1,200 of support for the most vulnerable households already announced earlier this year.
But I know that not everyone will be eligible for the schemes I have outlined above – especially those living in park homes, or who use heating oil in rural areas in constituencies such as mine. We will set up a discretionary fund to make sure that no one is left behind this winter.
Businesses will be offered an equivalent guarantee for six months for those hit by rising prices, and after those six months we will provide further support for vulnerable sectors, such as hospitality, including our local pubs. We will work with businesses to review where this should be targeted.
But we are also taking action to ensure that we are never in this position again. That means ending decades of short-term thinking which has allowed Putin to weaponise energy supplies as part of his illegal invasion of Ukraine.
We will ramp up energy supply and fix the regulation of our energy market. This will include establishing a new Energy Supply Taskforce, in the style of the Vaccine Taskforce, to negotiate new long-term contracts with suppliers to bring down energy costs.
Together with the Bank of England, we have secured a new £40 billion facility, so energy firms have the liquidity they need to manage volatility in energy markets, stabilising the market, reducing costs for the exchequer, and decreasing the chances of energy companies needing our support.
To fix domestic supply, we have to be bold. I want the UK to be a net energy exporter by 2040.
We will end the moratorium on shale extraction to get gas flowing as soon as six months’ time, boost renewables including wind and solar, launch Great British Nuclear later this month, and create a pro-investor environment to get more domestic supply projects off the ground, faster.
A review will be held to fix the longstanding problems within our energy regulation, and we will bring forward fundamental reforms to make our energy market fit for the challenges Britain faces today.
The Rt Hon Member for Kingswood, Chris Skidmore MP, will also lead a review to ensure we deliver net zero by 2050 in a way that is pro-business and pro-growth.
When I took office, I was clear that the next few months would not be easy. But I have every confidence that the resolve of the British people is strong enough to see us through the storm. Today’s package sends a clear message that this Government is with them every step of the way.
Yours Sincerely,
All MPs and Peers
September 9, 2022
Good morning.
All she is doing is robbing Peter to pay Paul and shore up her reelection chances.
It won’t work.
September 9, 2022
Indeed taxpayers or customers have to pay in the end. Lower taxes but retain a real market prices to reduce usage – that is the best way to go so people start to reduce energy demand.
“temporarily suspending green levies” why only temporarily they are a nonsense? But given the make up of deluded, virtue signalling, unscientific dopes we have as MPs perhaps she cannot politically abandon the net zero insanity yet? Nothing is so permanent as that which is initially described as temporary (income tax for example).
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Business, Energy and Corporate Responsibility)
Lord Callanan claims wind is now a third of the prices of electricity from gas Boris claimed 1/9 other day. Neither is remotely true once you allow for the rigged markets, intermittency, connection costs, back up… Stop all subsidies and let renewables compete on a level playing field with coal, gas, oil, nuclear…
September 9, 2022
+many
I expect she is hoping to bring down headline inflation ( as JR said) and then we can get back to no tiny bit of interest for savers and huge benefits for govt.paying back its exploding debt.
Talk about the pound in our pocket!
September 9, 2022
“the best way to go so people start to reduce energy demand” – Too right LL
On the television I hear people saying “we might even have to wear jumpers indoors” & ” and will have to wrap ourselves in blankets” – What’s the problem with that?
September 10, 2022
The average price of wind is average market price less a slight discount because wind contributes little when supply is tight and we hit capacity buffers – a couple of weeks ago the market average was over £500/MWh, PLUS the average ROC subsidy which varies from about £50/MWh for onshore wind through double that for offshore wind, and a shocking £175/MWh for floating offshore wind. This sector of supply is always more expensive than gas, and accounts for the majority of wind supply. The average wind CFD in payment is around £170/MWh, due for a further inflation uplift in October. The cheapest wind is the portion of Triton Knoll output on a £94.81/MWh CFD. There is a further element of new capacity that gets full market price.
The overall production weighted average is actually above market price.
September 11, 2022
Ohgodhelpus Skidmote is going to perpetuate the unparalleled hatred calamity of Net Zero. UK emits one per cent of global CO2, Chins 31%. Thete is absolutely no way that the rise in CO2 will be checked. CO2 has very little effect on temperature which is rising beneficially at 1.3dehsC s CENTURY. Do Skidmote is futile, expensive and should be shut down with Gummer and his CCC. I sound enraged by all this incompetence because I am
September 9, 2022
Still we pay vat on energy.
What is the real reason this is not removed. Could it be because it’s written into the TCA with Brussels.
Why are we sticking to net zero by 2050 when this is patently not achievable without bankrupting the country.
May I take this opportunity to wish our new Monarch well and offer my condolences on the loss of great woman.
September 9, 2022
+many Agree100%
September 9, 2022
Face facts, Mark. Successive governments have made a mess of the whole energy situation which has led us to the current position and Liz Truss has said she will try and get us out of it. It’s encouraging that shale gas may be available in 6 months whereas the doomsayers were talking anything up to ten years with literally thousands of wells. Hopefully she will then turn her attention to the madness of electric cars and gas boilers.
September 9, 2022
She is shoring up the economy, and there really is no alternative. That should be evident from the magnitude of the intervention that will be needed to be effective, which could be equivalent to more than 7% of GDP. The letter doesn’t make it clear who will ultimately bear the costs of these massive government subsidies for retail energy consumers (Paul) but I guess that most of the burden will fall on general taxation (Peter) over coming decades. Not all of this is the price we will have to pay for our proxy war in Ukraine, notionally in defence of freedom and democracy and world peace, but much of it does spring from that much lauded gross strategic policy error. Just pray that we do not have the infinitely greater costs of reconstruction after a nuclear exchange with Russia.
September 9, 2022
It will be inflation. Those that can benefit from information and expert help will benefit. The working class without such advantages will pay the inflation tax. Its the uniparty way.
PA increases with a potentially higher base & top rate, would have been better. It would mitigate the immediate hit on a monthly pay cycle. It would then be clawed back over a period of non-inflationary rises in the allowance.
The price shock would also help reduce demand, even though less direct tax would reduce the need. Some low paid workers who have unused PA should then be able to cash them in at 20%.
If we could also combine NI&PAYE a number of self employment problems would dis-appear. State Pension could be replaced by NEST. Those that cant provide for themselves will pick up benefits.
The Energy problem is our local supply and reserves do not exceed local peak demand, including maximum export on the connectors. If they did local prices would uncouple from world prices.
Lets try free and competitive markets , if not nationalize them.
September 10, 2022
It will be far less inflationary in the short term.
September 9, 2022
This policy will prop up energy prices not reduce them but then of course the intention of policy such as this is to placate, appease or deceive a people ie an act of politics rather than any concerted plan to correct the PHYSICAL supply demand imbalance
I have just read a superb article decrying Net Zero as a, and I quote’ ‘dangerous delusion’. I believe that phrase describes the situation perfectly and as we can now see with policy responses from political leaders who parrot the propaganda of NZ and CC but the reality of their politics has consequences for those who live on planet real
Again, these leaders deliberately the crisis and then exploit this crisis to further their authoritarian and collectivist agenda
The Tories and so will we for their refusal to expose collectivist and Socialist ideology. Dependency is control and Labour and the unions understand this only too well. The Tories have become the facilitators of an appalling and destructive ideology that seeks to politicise all areas of life
September 9, 2022
Indeed net zero it is a very dangerous and entirely pointless delusion/religion.
So Liz promises an “Energy Supply Taskforce, in the style of the Vaccine Taskforce” well if they look at the statistics it is now fairly clear that the vaccine were both fairly ineffective and for many, dangerous did much net harm. Especially for the young who were never at any real risk. Yet still the JCVI and Gov. are pushing them even at the young & children. Why?
September 9, 2022
Her appointment of the climate change fanatic Chris Skidmore to “lead a review to ensure we deliver net zero by 2050” is like asking a blind man to help your children across the road. This is the proof that the net zero lunacy is going to be forced upon us, no matter what the cost to nation either financially or in terms of energy security. It is madness and we can now clearly see that Truss can’t be trusted.
September 9, 2022
It was a chance to scrap Net Zero, which has now been missed.
“…a new Energy Supply Taskforce, in the style of the Vaccine Taskforce…”. Sounds like a disaster in the making.
“Putin’s war”. Come on, who are you kidding?
And the money for this comes from where? I’d just like to know, that’s all.
September 9, 2022
+10000
September 9, 2022
Spot on Wanderer.
September 9, 2022
Still banging on about net zero. Will we ever get any sense from our politicians?
September 9, 2022
I laud her positive start. As things evolve, stay flexible, it is warfare where response to change is an essential element of ultimate success. Nothing will remain as it is on day one. Remember, to steal a phrase, “Who dares wins.”
September 9, 2022
The anti-UK British Establishment deliberately created this situation. They own it.
Truss is, at least, taking some long overdue steps to try and repair the damage and prevent a repetition. We must hope that it works, although repeating the commitment to the Net Zero lunacy doesn’t give me much cause for confidence.
I hope her next high profile policy announcement is that we are leaving the ECHR, scrapping the HRA and will no longer be made the laughing stock of the world by the Albanian Mafia and their criminal foot soldiers exploiting the land of “free everything.”
September 9, 2022
This £1000 off my energy bill – where is she going to get that money from ? It wouldn’t be from me would it ?
September 9, 2022
Of course it would Roy. You (and the word is used in its loosest possible connection) have over the past 20 years or more voted for governments that have put us in this position. You could say it was obvious from the moment John Prescott started eulogising Kyoto.
September 9, 2022
Not a bad effort, given this was what was going to be attempted.
Help for businesses after the six month period might target more worthwhile, necessary enterprises than venues to booze. If people by then still can indulge in the luxury of visiting public houses, let them pay for their own pleasures.
Chancellor Kwarteng (yes! we have no scholars, we have no scholars today!) now must surely act with celerity on removing VAT.
The now discontinued green levies were a good or whole part of the justification for the swinging increases in standing charges. Given the flat rate tax nature of those charges, it is a pity the opportunity was not taken to reduce or even do away with them, thereby to assist poorer households disproportionately.
September 9, 2022
Slashing standing charges would have done far more to help those who can least afford to heat their homes.
It is preposterous that these have been sharply increased. They are subsidising the better-off.
September 9, 2022
Standing charges are an annoying increase but do not constitute the majority of most people’s bills.
Subsidising the unit costs means that the choice between “eating and heating” kicks in after the house is warm and for our increasing obese population becomes a choice between “more eating and more heating”
September 9, 2022
But the majority of poor people’s – bills there is no justification for such high standing charges.
September 10, 2022
Inaccurate @LL – standing charges are only a large part of low users’ bills, their financial status has nothing to do with it.
September 9, 2022
I’m not sure you are right that slashing standing charges would have done far more NHL.
From October 1st the cap is 46p per day for electricity and 38p for gas.
Assuming you had your way and standing charges went to zero:-
46+38=84p
84p × 365 days = £306.60 saved per year.
The government is giving the less well off £400
Plus a price cap worth a saving of £1000 per year.
September 9, 2022
removing would take out perhaps £20 per quarter, that was about half that.
Big deal!
September 9, 2022
“We will ramp up energy supply and fix the regulation of our energy market.” – I hope this refers to domestic supply and control of domestic prices.
“We will end the moratorium on shale extraction to get gas flowing as soon as six months’ time” – I hope this isn’t just talk and endless arguing resulting in nothing getting done (again).
“boost renewables including wind and solar, launch Great British Nuclear later this month” – more money down the drain with wind and solar and even less farmland to feed our overpopulation.
I hope all of these projects will be kept British, but more likely to mostly be foreign owned. Only UK politicians are stupid enough to put essential services under foreign ownership and control.
Next job is to tackle this deliberate mass immigration and most of all, be honest with the public instead of pledging one thing and then doing the opposite. The CONS dishonesty will not go unrewarded! You may rely on the other parties being even worse, which in itself would show your complete and utter disrespect for our country.
September 9, 2022
That all sounds expensive Sir John. Backed into a corner and nowhere else to go this is a comprehensive package which alleviates the cost issue short term while looking to the longer term.
I hope that we are subsiding the wholesale price and not the retail price which will cost less as we do not subsidise the providers’ margin and pay a margin on operating costs. If providers can buy at a lower rate there is an option to reintroduce fixed term contracts and competition.
I am saddened to see that we will still pursue net zero, however it is dressed up as pro-business but at least green levies have been removed – for now. Next step is decouple renewable energy prices from the price of electricity generated by other (at present) more expensive means. No reason for everyone to increase their prices, free markets and all that. By making wind, solar and tidal cheaper it will encourage their uptake (free markets and all that).
September 9, 2022
Liz Truss has 31 ‘politicians’ in her Cabinet plus a lot of political staff and advisers. Did not any one of them foresee or have the courage to point out (with no further windfall tax) this is just not competitive with Labour/ Lib Dem/SNP £1900 cap (funded by companies, not voters paying more tax). If Liz Truss had any political sense she would , as Labour proposed, have abolished the £400 electricity bills discount which will not register in the £2500/£1900 debate and lowered the ‘guarantee level’ instead.
Astounding. Political disaster for Conservative Party. I can’t see Liz Truss lasting long as Prime Minister.
September 9, 2022
The next GE looms rather large irrespective of any reactions to the first couple of days of policy.
September 9, 2022
‘Boost renewables’. If she’d left that out I might have felt a glimmer of hope. They’ve been boosted long enough and she knows it.
September 9, 2022
Only a politician could claim that limiting the rise of a price cap amounts to bringing down bills.
September 9, 2022
“British household pays no more than £2,500 per year for their energy bills”
Are you saying that people who live in large houses that already have very high gas and electric bills will be subsidised by the taxpayer many of whom live in tiny houses and will never get near this amount but their bills still represent a large chunk of their income? If so this policy seems grossly unfair. Or have I not understood it correctly?
Also won’t it deter many from economising on their usage?
Reply No. If you burn more than average you pay more. The discount is applied to the unit price, not to the total bill.
September 9, 2022
reply to reply…for those of us who have lived in the same house for >30 years and whose children are long gone, the house requires rather more energy and therefore bills to pay, than if we had moved out into a small rabbit hutch.
Perhaps we should expect that we live at around 12C degrees to save money instead of 17-20C? Really great for us somewhat older residents. Hypothermia here we come! Oh. and a visit by ambulance to A&E eventually.
September 9, 2022
Unfortunately, you will have died from your hypothermia long before the ambulance arrives.
September 9, 2022
Help to Move and not Help to Buy would have been better for the environment, the younger generations’ ability to buy family homes AND for the economy.
Widows rattling around in large, super-heated family homes on their own is and always has been ridiculous.
September 9, 2022
Reply to Reply – Thank goodness for that. I think the policy needs to be clarified better.
September 9, 2022
A positive start.
I notice the emphasis on 2050, does this mean there will be effort and focus away from the over ambitious 2030 greenie targets and dogma onto planning and projects in good time for sustainable and economic capabilities.
September 9, 2022
dixie :
Er…no.
The 2030 and 2035 targets are specifically designed and necessary to achieve Net Zero by 2050 and the CCC were complaining in June that the current programmes will not deliver Net Zero by 2050 and consequently needed to be stepped up.
Back in March this year, Lord Deben, chairman of the CCC, said :
“More wind and solar farms should be built in the South East to take back control of our energy supply from Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.”
How can this history graduate be so deluded?
Everyone knows that renewables cannot function without gas generated electricity to stabilise the grid and provide long-term back up for when the wind doesn’t blow and there is no sunshine.
Or, if natural gas was to be replaced by hydrogen produced by electrolysis from “excess” wind energy, then eight times more installed wind capacity would be required for any given amount of reliable power.
To keep pushing renewables with no economic means of grid stability and backup is extreme recklessness and it is now just a question of how much damage will be done to the country by the CAGW zealots until this lesson is eventually learned and Net Zero is cancelled.
September 9, 2022
To be welcomed but it’s not ‘saving’ more smoke and mirrors. The BOE lending the energy industry 50 billion. And how will it be paid back?
Ah yes. By us in future bills.
September 10, 2022
The sums are necessary to support hedge purchases and sales in volatile markets. They become unnecessary when markets stop being volatile. If a nuclear power plant agrees to a forward sale at a fixed price it is at risk if it finds it has to shut down and buy in power from other sources. To guard against the possibility it might simply renege there has to be collateral that can be used to fund the extra cost of purchases. The same thing applies in the other direction if a supplier buys what turns out to be an expensive hedge if markets fall back. Collateral provides insurance against non performance of contracts. It may get used up if parties fail, and that entails losses to lenders providing it. Otherwise, as markets calm down it can be repaid in full. If market prices are stable there is no price exposure risk if a party fails to perform. There is then only credit risk where goods are supplied on credit terms.
September 9, 2022
Problem. Reaction. Solution.
That is the blueprint for communism.
It could not be clearer.
And the govt. has certainly CAUSED all these problems!
And now here it is trying to drag us all into its warm, caring embrace.
Humbug!
September 9, 2022
+1000
September 9, 2022
If Lizzies energy plan was a horse at Sandown Park it would be 100/1 outsider. The last Ofgem cap appears to be using wholesale prices of 15 p/kWh for gas and 27 p/kWh for electric, which is average this year, plus about 6 p/kWh for a combined dual fuel kWh on costs. Next winter a guess would be about 25 p/kWh for gas and 50 p/kWh for electric; plus, 7-8 p/kWh for a combined dual fuel kWh on costs. At that rate it might cost the Treasury £180 billion for a two year price freeze. The EU winter storage has passed its target so prices are dropping back.
September 9, 2022
I’m not sure what you are trying to prove acorn.
The Government have already said it may cost £200 billion.
Very similar your £180 billion estimate.
September 9, 2022
I suppose the aim is that this will keep at bay the demise of our country until 2024. Because winning elections is all that matters to this grotty little party, engaged in a verbal form of ‘football competition’ Red team Vs Blue team rubbish. “Yay ! Blue team wins ! Here we go here we go here we go…” and nothing of consequence coming from the 80 seat majority you were awarded to take on woke and The Blob.
With the loss of our Queen there is the inevitability that the United Kingdom will emerge from the darkness of this bleak winter literally looking and feeling NOTHING like our country – all the pubs boarded up for good, all the restaurants closed, mass unemployment and poverty even for those in work trying to compete with welfare claimants given houses on the estates they tried to buy into.
Borrow and spend is not good enough. Of its own it is yet another cop out and cave-in to the Left.
Please start listening to the people who voted for you and not the ones who didn’t and who never will.
War on Woke.
A good start in proving Ms Truss’s mettle would be to sack leftist police chiefs. A police chief who bleats in public that his force can’t deal with burglaries (even if true) should be sacked without pension straight away – he has given a green light to criminals.
THEN we might be able to start dealing with green warriors who want to turn us back to the dark ages and who are given tea and pizza because they are the unofficial active agents for the limitation of debate on our energy policies.
September 9, 2022
“That means ending decades of short-term thinking which has allowed Putin to weaponise energy supplies as part of his illegal invasion of Ukraine.”
It was also a bit silly to have kept prodding him knowing that he had control of our gas.
It wasn’t the Russian Eagle marching Westwards through those decades – it was the EU and Nato flags marching East. He told us many many times it was pissing him off.
And how ironic.
At one end of the European map we are prepared to risk nuclear war and impoverish ourselves to stand up for the right of a country to join the EU yet at the other end we cave in to a small band of terrorists to stop a country leaving the EU.
September 9, 2022
I was not aware that Ukraine was prodding the Russian Eagle and caused mass invasion, murder and torture including laying waste to much of their country.
September 10, 2022
Mickey Taking
I didn’t say that Ukraine was doing that.
The EU and Nato was and they are prepared to fight to the last Ukrainian and the last building in that forsaken country.
September 9, 2022
BTW. Did you notice the Treasury/BoE are to set up a £40 billion bailout fund for Casino Banking energy derivatives gamblers (mistakenly called traders). “Lehman Event” Looms For Europe As Energy Companies Face $1.5T In Margin Calls”
That’s the type of Casino worth being a member of. The Casino boss bails out the gamblers who have lost.
September 9, 2022
If there is a buyer there is a seller. If they want to play the market fine. The taxpayer should not be involved.
Let the market work, if needed nationalize reorganize, regulate and sell back to new ownership and capital.
September 10, 2022
The winners have been the banks who control the purse strings on who gets to have collateral to trade and hedge. Reports are coming in that they expect bumper earnings from commodity trading. Demanding that they will only fund projects if they are given a big slice of the action has put them in a position of power over supplies. Squeezing production through denying financing and insurance gives them a one way bet on grabbing forward hedge sales for themselves.
We now have a report that Lloyds is trying to ban insurance for new coal projects. That just maintains the energy squeeze. Green virtue signalling by bankers like Carney with his ESG measures is at the heart of why we are where we are. Greens rig markets. They will carry on doing so until they are ousted.
September 10, 2022
I doubt funding will be provided to mere traders. It will be for retail suppliers and for generators to provide collateral for forward contracts at fixed prices. It is not a bailout. Rather, it provides the chips to fund hedge positions.
There is some risk that hedges become big losers – if prices rise in the case of a generator selling forward, and if prices fall in the case of a retail supplier buying forward at fixed prices. That does pose a risk of real losses should they go bankrupt. Otherwise, the requirement for funding will subside when markets stabilise.
September 9, 2022
Net zero will never be achieved. CO2 is no danger in the atmosphere, which is 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, 0.6% Argon gas leaving 0.4% for other gases of which CO2 is 0.004%. To kill us CO2 would have to be 10% of the atmosphere so we have a long way to go to get anywhere near that!
What an opportunity missed by our new PM to scrap the net zero target & bring some sanity to our energy policy!
September 9, 2022
Subsidising energy now, so we pay for it later, rather than cutting taxes, looks attractive but it has two downsides.
Firstly it reduces people’s options as to how they deal the increased prices and secondly it means that demand will not be sufficiently reduced to avoid rationing/rolling blackouts.
But then rolling blackouts is very much part of the existing Net Zero plan, so this will be a way of getting the public used to intermittent supplies of electricity whilst blaming Mr. Putin rather than Net Zero itself.
September 10, 2022
You forgot to mention it’s all for our own good.
Sacrifice for the right of one country to join the EU while they won’t let us leave it.
September 9, 2022
The Energy Supply Taskforce leader studied law and the Net Zero review will be conducted by a modern history graduate.
The PM needs to implement the recommendations Kate Bingham made in her Romanes lecture where she warned that we suffer from “a notable lack of scientific, industrial, commercial and manufacturing skills both amongst Civil servants and politicians.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG_a0P2qybE
Start at 28 minutes
Energy supply and Net Zero requires an engineer to call a halt to the reckless continuation of Net Zero.
September 10, 2022
Material’s background is M&A at Credit Suisse. She will need to hire trading expertise that will be looking at multi million bonuses this year if her team is not to be outclassed in negotiations that could easily leave us saddled with enormous costs for the future.
Beware of Greens bearing gifts.
There really should be a red team opposite Skidmore’s looking at the idea of cancelling net zero. If we are going to spend several trillion pounds and trash the economy there needs to be an extraordinarily good excuse, properly substantiated. It is also necessary to debunk the infeasible, unaffordable unicorns on which so much net zero policy is based.
September 10, 2022
Ugh. Material should read McTernan. I hate autocorrect.
September 9, 2022
Renewable energy generation should be halted until there exists an economic system for grid stability and backup and the electrification of heating and transport should be halted until the local grid is capable of delivering the power.
Otherwise both will permanently cause highly volatile pricing and/or rationing/rolling blackouts.
September 9, 2022
Oh thanks you so much for giving us a few scraps to get us over a crisis entirely caused by your own governments long term incompetence and ridiculous policies. We are so grateful that we might have enough to eat and not freeze to death.
September 9, 2022
“The Rt Hon Member for Kingswood, Chris Skidmore MP, will also lead a review to ensure we deliver net zero by 2050 in a way that is pro-business and pro-growth.”
Why are we continuing with our unilateral Net Zero Strategy when our contribution to global CO2 emissions is just 1% of the total and there is simply no empirical evidence for CAGW?
How can 4 molecules of CO2 per 10,000 (400ppm) instead of 3 molecules of CO2 per 10,000 (300 ppm) cause climate breakdown?
The records show that global temperature and CO2 are at historically low levels and temperature is not determined by CO2. In fact Antarctica Vostok ice core data going back 450,000 years show CO2 following temperature and the Greenland ice core data going back to the last ice age shows no correlation between CO2 concentration and temperature. The Greenland ice core data and data from speleothems shows we recently had temperatures a couple of degrees higher than today.
CO2 declined from 6000 ppm 500 million years ago, the start of the Cambrian explosion, to just 180 ppm at the last ice age glacial maximum 20,000 years ago and came very close to the 150 ppm that plants, and hence all life on Earth, needs to survive. Fortunately as the planet warmed (not due to anthropological CO2 emissions) as we exited the ice age the CO2 level rose to 280 ppm just before the Industrial Revolution.
We actually would benefit from increasing CO2 levels to 1000 ppm or even more to assist plant growth.
The unilateral CCA/Net Zero will simply destroy our economy.
September 9, 2022
The PM has said that fracking can take place provided there is agreement from the local community.
So will the Government/BEIS be funding the expected protestors, just as the Cabinet Office and Home Office are funding the organisations taking it to court over their Rwanda plan?
September 9, 2022
Skidmore wrote a book, “Britannia Unchained”, in which he described the British as “among the worst idlers in the world”. Needless to say his knowledge of science like that of his peers is Net Zero. Has he ever worked in an environment himself which is not infested with useless Arts graduates like himself?
My personal experience is that poor working practices are the consequence of poor quality management because the majority of people would rather pass their time productively, especially when working in a challenging and interesting sphere.
Jacob Rees-Mogg needs to sort out the civil service Arts graduate idlers most of whom are not up to the job and
are extremely badly managed. In matters like energy security and economy they are incapable of giving advice which is scientifically sound because they don’t know any science otherwise they could not talk about Net Zero with a straight face.
September 9, 2022
forthurst :
“Jacob Rees-Mogg needs to sort out the civil service Arts graduate idlers most of whom are not up to the job and are extremely badly managed. In matters like energy security and economy they are incapable of giving advice which is scientifically sound because they don’t know any science otherwise they could not talk about Net Zero with a straight face.”
The following BEIS Civil Servants gave evidence to the HoC Public Accounts Committee meeting 25/10/2021 on “Achieving Net Zero : Follow Up :
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/e7153087-35c9-44c4-8d7f-6522b4acf8e1
Permanent Secretary : Sarah Munby : Oxford PPE, LSE Economics
Director General Net Zero Buildings and Industry : Ben Rimmington : Cambridge Modern Languages
Director General Net Zero Strategy and International : Lee McDonough : “Has previously held roles in the Department of Health and Social Care as Director General, NHS Policy and Performance Group and as Director General, Acute Care and Workforce.”
If globalist economists and arts graduates with no science or engineering backgrounds and no strategic vision are running departments concerned with energy and giving advice to PMs and Parliament then it is not a surprise we find ourselves in the current lack of affordable energy mess.
The above meeting is worth watching.
PS : When the Treasury gave their evidence to the PAC they refused to give any costing for achieving Net Zero.
September 10, 2022
Recently we produced more and better cars than ever in this country. Meaning that it wasn’t the workers who were deficient in the Austin era.
September 9, 2022
092022Z
We must await the Chancellor’s clarification but what we’ve seen so far suggests a scheme little easier to understand than the one it supersedes (“the Johnson scheme”).
I have yet to see how the support offered will help those that purchase energy from more than one supplier, e.g. electricity from one and gas from another.
The First Lord refers to a “discretionary fund”, from which we may infer that those least able to afford the cost of energy will be obliged to apply for relief, something we can assume will bring them up against burdensome bureaucracy and be likely to give rise, in far too many cases, to their ‘falling between the cracks’.
One part of the Johnson scheme that seemed to work quite well was the payment of part of the relief (£150) via the Council-Tax system. It seems to me that — at least as far as possible —the whole subsidy ought to be administered so. The only constraint on this would be a tax-payer’s lack of a bank account; well, I’m sorry but I can see no excuse to-day for an honest citizen’s not having one; perhaps another reader can explain otherwise.
It’s a pity that the P.M. perpetuates the myth of ‘Net Zero’, apparently believing — and ‘believing’ is the appropriate term, since it is a matter of faith, not of science — that achieving it is inherently desirable. I’ve said often enough — in these pages and elsewhere — that anthropogenic climate change, which underlies ‘Net Zero’, is nothing but a fantasy of the loony left; why a leader or indeed any member of the Conservative Party would continue to support the idea is beyond me.
ΠΞ
September 10, 2022
I don’t think that the council tax mechanism really covers it. There are too many who slip between the floorboards.
September 9, 2022
The Conservatives are playing a very dangerous game. Havent they learned it is not possible to spend our way into prosperity. God forbid government asked its citizens to tighten their belts a bit and throw on a sweater or two…stop treating us like babies
Back in April, the best estimate for the UK fiscal deficit in calendar year 2022 was just over £100bn. Since then, annual debt interest expense has risen by about £40bn. The energy price cap might cost £130-150bn over a full year, maybe more. Liz Truss’s ‘tax cuts’ will cost about £35bn. So the deficit will be well in excess of £300bn.
The question now is how much of this the FX markets will tolerate. I’d say the moment of truth is now very near indeed.
The Bank of England has to do everything it can to prevent a “sterling crisis”. It may decide to raise rates to demonstrate resolve, and I don’t think it can afford to do much in the way of money creation to support all this new borrowing. This is desperate stuff.
I must say, though, that Ms Truss’s opposition to “hand-outs” didn’t last long!
September 10, 2022
Ambitions for moving to self-sufficiency and beyond to being a net energy exporter are all well and good, but they must be tempered by reality. Plans to use every conceivable very expensive way to generate power are not going to create a competitive economy or an exportable surplus because they will be far too costly. I have frequently pointed out why we have not developed tidal energy, why attempting to rely on ever greater amounts of wind and solar, and why developing hydrogen as an energy store are all extremely uneconomic. The present circumstances change none of that. The quest for a holy grail needs to be diverted towards more realistic aims.
If we find ourselves with a high volume shale resource we might use that for export once we have covered our own needs. We might export Cornish lithium (though the slow pace of progress suggests that may not be a big prospect). If we managed to develop skill in low cost nuclear projects we might be able to build that into an export business, but that would of itself need cheap energy.
We are already importing wind farms, much of the content from China. That does no good to our balance of payments or our security of supply. We have an urgent need to help ensure the existence of competitive global markets that form a backstop should our own resource prove inadequate. If we are to seek to rely on our own resource we will almost certainly need to devise economic methods to exploit our coal resource: hobbling it (and gas) with CCS is not a good approach – that simply ensures uncompetitive supply and uses the resource faster.