The answers below show the government is offering substantial support for the energy using industries, but some of this support is a strange money go round to pay the higher taxes and carbon prices in the UK than competitors face. Surely it would be cheaper and better to cut the collection of taxes and the distribution of subsidies?
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (123845):
Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will reduce the cost of carbon for large energy using industries to ease cost pressures for domestic production. (123845)
Tabled on: 16 January 2023
Answer:
Graham Stuart:
The Government recognises that UK industrial electricity prices are higher than those of other countries and will act to address this.
The Government has already extended the Energy Intensive Industry Compensation Scheme for a further 3 years through to 2025, and doubled the budget for the scheme in the process.
The Government is also actively considering other measures to support business, including increasing the renewable obligation exemption to 100%.
This builds upon extensive support that the Government has provided in recent years including more than £2 billion to help with the costs of electricity and to protect jobs.
The answer was submitted on 24 Jan 2023 at 12:04.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (123844):
Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he make a comparative assessment of average (a) energy and (b) carbon costs in the (i) steel, (ii) ceramics and (iii) building materials industries in (A) the UK and (B) other comparable countries in the latest period for which data is available. (123844)
Tabled on: 16 January 2023
Answer:
Ms Nusrat Ghani:
This Government will always be on the side of business and is providing an unprecedented £18 billion of support through the Energy Bill Relief Scheme. The newly announced Energy Bills Discount Scheme will continue support for a further year from April 2023 and includes additional support for eligible energy and trade intensive industries, including the Steel sector.
Furthermore, this Government is determined to secure a competitive future for our energy intensive industries for the long term. We have provided extensive support, including more than £2 billion to help with the costs of electricity and to protect jobs.
The answer was submitted on 24 Jan 2023 at 12:05.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (123843):
Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what his forecast is for UK steel output in 2023. (123843)
Tabled on: 16 January 2023
Answer:
Ms Nusrat Ghani:
The Government does not publish or produce forecasts for UK steel output.
The answer was submitted on 24 Jan 2023 at 12:07.
January 27, 2023
Good morning.
It has been said here many times before but it is always worth repeating what President Reagan once said.
“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
No one could possibly sum up our current situation better. And, if you listen carefully, you can hear the Gipper laughing from the grave.
January 27, 2023
You surely must be aware that according to WEF rules, once a tax has been levied it can’t be repealed.
Fishy said only idiots would want tax cuts. End of.
January 27, 2023
Only an idiotic politician would call most of the electorate idiots? Only an idiot Chancellor would think thet printing money, locking down the economy, and wasting money hand over fist on worthless dross like HS2, eat out to help out, furlough, duff vaccines, test and trace… would not create inflation!
January 27, 2023
Mark B Good logic!
As I was reading John’s blog, I was thinking that perhaps the reason the government gets so much wrong is because they interfere too much, with too many things, rather than letting industries get on and sort out themselves!
Reagon’s comment sums it up rather well!
January 27, 2023
Yes, to every complex problem there is always a simple, “common sense” answer, and it is invariably wrong.
January 28, 2023
It may surprise you to know that readers on here usually think your common sense solution to things is invariably wrong? If only you would offer really complex solutions we might believe you!
January 27, 2023
The Gipper was spot on. I think he borrowed it from the military. If it moves salute it, if it doesn’t paint it white. Truth is all this government’s avarice has a tipping point. It varies with culture and mindset, but my contention is that it is well past the point of balance here in the UK. There is no indication that this government or the disaster in waiting have any concept of this.
January 27, 2023
Spot On Mark B
January 27, 2023
@Mark B +1 you forgot if their is a situation that needs solving make a speech, then do nothing
January 27, 2023
Wouldn’t it be better to have our own energy security where we produce it at home and create jobs and receive more tax revenue? Oh, silly me. We used to. Instead we import it because we need it and ignore what’s under our feet. Is government really helping business? I don’t think so. Just stop paying any subsidies and constraint payments for renewables and get some reliable energy. Successive governments are to blame for where we find ourselves now. Not Putin. They have left it rather late.
January 27, 2023
FUS,
Government does much the same with people. If the pension rate was £25,000pa it would amount to one payment and very few supplemental payments. Additionally you would not need an army of scribes trying to work out who was entitled to what. Thirdly it would return human dignity, possibly the most important government theft of all.
Finally, as government is not a profit making industry, but possibly the worst run industry in the country, others go bust,we need a root and branch reform and reduction of the tax industry. People and private industrial enterprises are much better at handling their cash than government.
January 27, 2023
True Agricola.
January 27, 2023
Yes. No one believes except evasive ministers that government failure has not been fundamental to this problem. And in related news informed sources say that HS2 is likely to finish early, in West london because of guess what, rising costs especially steel. A flagship much trumpeted transport link not ending at a central London terminus. Jokers in charge but no one is laughing.
Overall Ido not understand the point of these esoteric questions, seems like game playing and will have little impact on your political survival.
I would have thought you and every other Tory MP, would be piling into ministers publicly, to sort out the appalling performance of the public sector costing us far more than an energy subsidy.
I guess you all know, privately that your government is pretty useless, as we do, and do not want to highlight the fact
January 28, 2023
NIGL – No MP “piles” into minsters. It is all TOO nicey, nicey, the honorable gentleman this and my learned friend that BS etc. Not one MP calls them out and IF, and I say IF one does then the speaker will interrupt and say naughty, naughty we cannot use that language in this place. It is jobs for the boys and we have 650 of them and 770 in the other place.
January 27, 2023
No mention of mining our coal, or fracking for gas – the answer relies on imports. What is wrong with this Government and its Ministers? Sensible answers ought to include the investigation of both to establish practicality and contribution to the nation’s embarrassment on energy cost and supply.
January 27, 2023
I can’t believe I am saying this, but due to all our political parties having the same policy on ‘net-zero’ I believe that the democracy thing to do, is to have a referendum and give the question to the people
January 27, 2023
Slight of Hand FUS – The “Optics” are much better if we discourage our own fossil energy industries, thus assisting UK Net Zero objectives (and allowing much virtue signalling) – whilst importing fossil fuel energy in the form of liquified gas and bio mass (e.g. wood).
As for our Industry, exactly the same. Burden them with green taxes and make them compete with foreign producers using coal-fired power stations. Apparently, imported fossil fuel and finished goods don’t count towards our Net Zero totals and therefore clearly don’t have any impact on Climate Change!
How Daft are We to believe this nonsense? Very it seems.
January 27, 2023
Succinctly put. Did you notice ANY industry sector-specific plan in the Chancellors speech? Watching Mr Hunt present his ‘ideas’ made me wonder if he is some form of advanced, but non-perfected, ‘humanoid robot’; the mannerisms just didn’t seem quite right. Creepy!
January 27, 2023
Absolutely!
January 27, 2023
All Putin has done is to exploit the underlying weakness in energy security that successive governments have engineered to make us good impotent Europeans.
January 27, 2023
@Fedupsoutherner +1 The Boris Johnson not thinking things through bluster, the headline, the headline
January 27, 2023
Useless Government. They just regulate and tax everything whilst praying at the net stupid alter. This Tory Government couldn’t run a whelk stall and needs to go. We need Reform a real conservative party.
January 27, 2023
+1 timeaction.
January 27, 2023
Energy and Industrial Strategy – you mean there is a strategy?
It just always seems to me with most things now that when a problem arises instead of getting to its root, more money is shoved at it.
The root cause of the problem is still there though.
January 27, 2023
”more money is shoved at it” I think you mean more TAX
January 27, 2023
I see the Tories have had enough of woke indoctrination and have ditched the Maoist poison of unconscious bias training whose only purpose is to make some feel weak and guilty and others strong and pious. That this cancer is still being forced down the throats of others is utterly intolerable. It is time this arse of a government outlawed all things woke fascist before it does real harm to the fundaments of our country
January 27, 2023
They give taxpayers’ money to help with electricity bills that have been made artificially high by the ‘carbon tax’ CO2 madness! Insane. All to keep the net zero ideologues such as Chris Skidmore happy.
And very reminiscent of your government’s policy during Covid. First tell people not to go to work. Then shovel billions in taxpayers’ money at them to keep them quiet, calling it ‘furlough’.
January 27, 2023
Stopped from all angles . Who the heck has got a hold of our country ? what is wrong with the mentality ?.
NHS: a consultation with tests and referral a few weeks ago by myself a few weeks ago took one move .With questionably said better qualified people it now takes 5 moves . A patient comes back 5 times . No wonder waiting lists are longer . A few want it their way and are not able to see the whole picture so problems and people are pushed around so these incapable morons talk the talk and let everybody down.
January 27, 2023
Why on earth do we have to pay for a department which employs people like this who are unable to answer the questions to very people they are there to aid and support?
January 27, 2023
Two choices:
Net Zero, lead global warming fight back, restrict coal, oil and nuclear and go for wind and subsidies of billions of pounds. This puts the government firmly in control and looks as if we are leading the world in advanced scientific discovery.
Or…
In Abu Dhabi, the oil company is national. They build estates for widows, they have a superb school system, there is public housing. The money spreads down through society so that it is one of the richest places in the world. It also sucks in men and women from the desperately poor parts of the world and gives them work and a little money to send home. All done by – fracking…
China and India, I believe, have quite a lot of coal fired electricity production which they mine for themselves…
The opportunity is there for us in this oil and coal rich country.
January 27, 2023
+many
January 27, 2023
It sounds remarkably like the Civil Servants came up with a “make work for civil servants” scheme and the Government Ministers either didn’t have the brains to work it out or didn’t have the cojones to say no.
In other news, Hunt says we must “stop talking Britain down.” So in his world it’s OK for the Blu-Green Socialist CONs to deliberately run Britain into the ground but we mustn’t discuss the chaos they’ve created.
1000 criminal migrants have arrived in the past few days. And in other news, SERCO is offering landlords the kind of deal they could previously only dream of so that the tens of thousands of criminal migrants they currently have accommodated in luxury hotels can be moved into houses to take the next step in their settlement in the UK! All funded by taxpayers, natch.
I thought Sunak was going to deport them 🙂
January 27, 2023
Donna
I wonder who instructed Serco to house the immigrants (for life?)? Was it actually the government or our civil servants?
January 27, 2023
Not exactly on topic…
From the Telegraph…
‘Britain must take advantage of its Brexit “freedoms” to boost prosperity and counter incorrect claims of economic “gloom”,” (Says Chancellor Hunt). He also mentions the necessity of cutting red tape so business can flourish.
Obviously he’s either been reading this blog or has just heard of The Reform Party.
January 27, 2023
I thought that the wise ones had already decided to cut domestic fuel help in April and move on to subsidising small business energy costs?
They should not have got us into this situation in the first place.
And we can’t make steel without coal…coking coal.
January 27, 2023
Sensible folk assess values with a calculator.
This convoluted government creates rules with a complicator.
Efficiency is simple and costs less.
This govt is full of expensive wastrels putting what energy it has into generating worthlessness.
January 27, 2023
So reality is finally dawning on Government that HS2 faces additional years of delay, ramped up inflationary costs and proposals to move the Central London terminus out to Old Oak Common !!
This whiter than white, blindingly foolish, top of the list of sunk £ billions of a pipedream iscreaking towards the buffers with several parts of the swish train already derailed.
The successive Ministers and Governments ought to do the Japanese thing – publicly hang heads in shame and beg forgiveness.
January 27, 2023
Neither of these two MPs bring anything to the department as they have absolutely no experience in business, energy or industry of any description. One of the most important sectors of government and both these ministers can be described as ”beginners”. No doubt they do what the civil servants tell them to do!!!
Rishi and his central team must have been concentrating on filling posts with ‘supporters’ which shows a complete disregard for the future progress of this country. I think this is also the case in many other departments which is why we are failing to make any worthwhile progress.
I have said it before, ”all announcements and NO do”!!!!!!
January 27, 2023
Indeed. More boat people, no deportations and Serco publically advertising for private housing to help these criminals on their acclimatisation journey. No one knows who they are or their inherent risk as we saw yet again this week. MSM hiding the cases as it doesn’t fit their lefty narrative. Totally useless Tory’s.
January 27, 2023
This Government is “addressing” so many issues – but are they actually going to take action. The voters will can at times forgive waste but stupidity, obvious stupidity losses votes.
January 27, 2023
Well said FUS, May I also add , stop paying our money to the lazy, give them three months to find employment and then stop all forms of benefit unless they are disabled or seriously ill.
January 27, 2023
Sorry, but to me these answers are from people that are motivated to keep alignment with the EU, and their Customs Union!
Our Competitiveness and Productivity, our Livelihoods, and the Conservative Party in Power, is not on their agenda!
Forget a Cheap Energy strategy, a Food/Fishing Strategy, cheap Fuel strategy, and so on,…
I don’t know whether I am sad or angry, until I consider what they are doing to the self employed?
And, on top of this; I hear all the work moving Tanks around the continent, including ours, is going to French/German/Polish owner drivers?
What chance have we got? PESCO I believe?
Regards,
RDM.
January 27, 2023
What a ridiculous money merry-go-round , they go extreme Doom Goblin then have to compensate industries lest it lay waste to what remains of our industrial base . In this I see our steel industry is teetering on the brink , the Government offering loans if they go green. For goodness sake , they don’t seem to realise you need coking coal to make raw steel , may be that basic fact didn’t make its way into their PPE degrees.
The problem though is wider than keeping what remains of our industrial base on life support with Government hand outs, our eye watering energy costs are also killing off any new energy intensive industries. I not sure what killed off that battery plant, but high energy prices can’t have been helpful, and with the talk of a silicon chip shortage, and other countries seeking to secure manufacturing capacity of those, anybody thinking to build a facility here would be a fool when 30% of price of chip is the energy cost in making them.
January 27, 2023
A few days ago I called out Sunak as a technocrat; well after listening to the Chancellor Hunt this morning I’m also calling him out as a technocrat …both woke, marists technocrats
January 27, 2023
How can the chancellor make his first major speech on the five growth priorities so boring, so negative …so dismal?
January 27, 2023
You asked ‘to reduce the cost of carbon’ – where do they buy carbon?
January 27, 2023
‘£2 billion to help with the costs of electricity and to protect jobs.’…and in comparison they’ve spent £4 billion on cycle lanes
January 27, 2023
As a direct comment on the answers I would say this. The highlighted industries do not want subsidies or bureaucratic tinkering by the church of Nett Zero. They want Cheap Energy. The UK is sitting on its own Cheap Energy, oil, gas, and coal. Use our own energy at extraction cost plus modest profit. Stop subjecting it to the vagueries of the World market, a system that is almost totally corrupt financially and politically. It would as a bye product reduce the cost of transport, the current driver of our inflationary cost of living. The final problem is government avarice better known as tax, it is overdue drastic reform.
January 27, 2023
And in relation to today’s announcement about a possible H2S change citing price increases.
Could one of your contributors with expertise in large engineering projects first tell me why they did not know how much steel and main materials they were going to use, plus an expansion factor to cover unknowns, at the start, surely they needed to know to price it/bid?
Following that, why didn’t they fix the price, then/buy forward?
Maybe it is a cheap ‘fag packet’ calculation to enable Ministers to sell it to us, with a nod nod, wink to and from them and the civil servants knowing that the cost will go up but too late to stop the project?
From afar it just looks, yet again, a failing large infrastructure project costing, yes you guessed it, us taxpayers for other peoples inefficiency.
January 27, 2023
Once again, we see the government not doing the blindingly obvious. Cheap reliable energy is the basis for a modern economy & we have plenty of it, but a house full of MPs who refuse to use it.
Then we have a government that has lost all common sense, so used to running in debt every year, they don’t see the simple solution, cut the cost of government! But that, of course, would take tough decisions, unpopular in the short term, but followed by real tax cuts would transform conservative chances of winning the next election. Then Jeremy Hunt says stop talking the UK down, when he is the No 1 person doing just that!
January 27, 2023
HS2 now going from Luton to Crewe – at a cost of £150bn ….absolutely pathetic
January 27, 2023
My mistake, it isn’t even going as far as Crewe …its stopping at Birmingham
January 27, 2023
There is an overheated debate with much virtue signalling about someone’s tax affairs. I have no specific comment, rightly the investigation should run its course. I will say that the opposition seeking political capital does us no favours because inevitably the other party will push back potentially delaying/obscuring the actualitee.
However there is a bigger general point, and we see it across the spectrum, namely incompetence and I suggest where exhibited makes them unfit for the offices of State.
January 27, 2023
I have just listened to our chancellor and was starting to see his reasoning untill he put such emphasis on windmills and then he referred to net zero in the Q&A at the end, at that I knew he was an idiot just like the rest. We cannot do without oil and coal fuel.
They are destroying our Great Britain.
January 27, 2023
We’re leading the world in offshore windfarms ….but your home energy bills will only increase, so whats the point
January 27, 2023
He is indeed another PPE dope and failed long term heath secretary.
January 27, 2023
Seems to me that we have government by sticking plaster instead of coherent strategic thought. The opposition would be no better (too busy trying to understand what a woman is).
January 27, 2023
I believe that this government is in fear of being asked directly ‘what a women is?’….I’d like to hear the Tories definitive answer
January 27, 2023
Crackdown on bogus eco products I read “The UK competition watchdog is to examine potential greenwashing” They should start with electric vehicles (that falsely claim zero emissions) the burning imported American wood (young coal) at Drax, the claims that trains and buses are greener than cars (usually not when fully considered) and finally the blatant lies on government web sites that walking and cycling produce no direct or indirect CO2 per mile! Then the bogus claims for wind and solar power.
January 27, 2023
Electric cars should honestly only claim larger emissions (than a similar sized ICU car) but these discharged elsewhere (other than the tyre wear emissions) which are larger as well (as heavier) and are discharged in the road & air just the same. They can honestly claim you pay less tax but probably not for much longer.
January 27, 2023
Lifelogic?
January 27, 2023
Never mind the cost of electricity, please ask the Secretary of State for BEIS how the National Grid intends to supply sufficient electricity to match demand when we have transitioned to 100% renewables in 2035 and in fact for the 2 week trial run in 2025.
As I write the 27GW of installed wind power is producing just 3.56 GW and the installed 13.5 GW of solar 1.29 GW together amounting to 11.6% of the 41.7 GW demand.
Some days the 27 GW of installed wind power fails to manage even 1 GW of power and solar power is of course zero when the sun goes down.
The Net Zero Strategy on P19 states :
“Our power system will consist of abundant, cheap British renewables, cutting edge new nuclear power stations, and be underpinned by flexibility including storage, gas with CCS, hydrogen and ensure reliable power is always there at the flick of a switch”.
Well, by 2035 nuclear will be zero or next to zero (just possibly Hinckley Point C (2 x 1.6 GW) will be running by then) and CCS, hydrogen and battery storage are uneconomic. Hydrogen storage requires an overbuild of installed wind turbine capacity of 8 to 10 times to produce any guaranteed amount of dispatchable power.
January 27, 2023
Best start buying candles
January 28, 2023
I made sure we had plenty in the autumn for emergency lighting, but not enough to heat a room for many days.
January 27, 2023
What a tangled web the Government weaves to maintain the twin fantasies that carbon emissions cause climate change and that windmills can reliably power the nation.
I have just received a notification from my electricity supplier advising that in the event of ‘extremely unlikely’ power cuts I should keep a mobile phone charged because my home phone and Internet probably won’t work without electricity. The question that immediately springs to mind is how many mobile phone masts have emergency power supplies that can last up to three hours? I think it’s very likely that in the event of ‘power sharing’ we will be left without heating, lighting and any form of emergency communication.
January 27, 2023
The issues you describe only exists in a world of net-zero and renewables ….no worries if our energy was based on coal, gas and nuclear
January 27, 2023
I loved Jeremy Hunt’s statement, ‘The economy is in trouble, so we have to raise taxes’.
January 27, 2023
He getting his economy policy from the ‘beano’ and the ‘viz’ …or maybe china
January 27, 2023
+100 Glen
January 27, 2023
Yes all strange
It still illustrates 12 years of Conservative neglect in securing a resilient affordable energy resource. The UK of course has one but is denied it use from neglect of Government management and the Boris Johnson race to the bottom for Net Zero. No other country has set out a policy to destroy its economy first and worry about the consequence later.
January 27, 2023
The subsidy & tax merry-go-round. Rather than do it right lets tinker around the edges.
It is this Conservative Government that has created high cost energy, no one else, not Putin, not the Ukraine. The UK against the majority of its competing Nations is able and has the resources just sitting there to be ahead of the pack.
The Conservative Government is refusing and cant be bothered to even thinking of managing
January 27, 2023
Indeed, importing coal, fracked gas and Woodchips. Exporting our manufacturing to import same goods from Countries using coal power stations. No energy strategy importing energy from our competitors. After 13 years the Tory’s have on one to blame but themselves and their rank stupidity.
January 27, 2023
Today we have the Conservative Government saying what they have been saying for as long as I can remember, they want to cut ‘Red Tape’
Also talking about the launch of reviews – again. No results of the previous ones just more talk
Previously we had the bonfire of the Quangos and just like spam the keep coming and growing
The Chancellor is suggesting the unemployed should actually work, but will pay them more not to.
Its an endless list of speeches and more talk, no action no desire to manage just blame others for 12 years of their own failure.
January 27, 2023
“The Government recognises that UK industrial electricity prices are higher than those of other countries and will act to address this.”
Government has sole ownership for their lack of management that has caused our higher prices.
January 27, 2023
“This Government will always be on the side of business and is providing an unprecedented £18 billion of support through the Energy Bill Relief Scheme.”
Government is the one taxing business out of the Country. So to paraphrase ‘the Government has neglected its job to manage the UK, and will now subsidies the high prices they have caused. Then these subsidies will need to be paid for by ever higher taxes’ – sorry, you couldn’t make it up.
The Government loves to make speeches but fails on delivery of their actually duties to the Country
January 27, 2023
So Minister Ghani whilst giving the unexpected and frankly shocking reply that “This Government will always be on the side of business…” (shocking, clearly, for it has been by no means clear it is on anyone’s side) reveals something of the quality of what that means by also telling us “The Government does not publish or produce forecasts for UK steel output”. Such is its concerns for steel production! Someone has forecasts, why not ask for sight of those? As clear a case of see no evil, do no good as has been admitted to in a while.
January 27, 2023
Jeremy Hunt’s statement,” The economy is in trouble so we have to raise taxes.” No you don’t, you idiot, you have to cut the cost of government so we live within our income! A ruthless approach to the cost of government would ensure we spent less than the income coming in, but that would take tough decisions & action. That ruthless approach would also allow for some proper tax reductions, both personal & business, & a start at repaying our massive debts! Do our MPs run their personal financial affairs the way they run the governments? There is no situation that our MPs cannot make worse, the last few years are proof of that.
January 28, 2023
+1
January 27, 2023
John, why did you ask about steel production in 2023? Has someone said they can’t produce this year because of energy costs? Were they told to install a windmill and solar panels on their roofs to power themselves? Seems to be what is coming for the rest of us!
Graham Stuart “The Government recognises that UK industrial electricity prices are higher than those of other countries and will act to address this.” when – in what time frame, Graham?
January 27, 2023
If your costs increase is it unreasonable that you raise your prices to cover them?
The Chancellor today says inflation is his priority, so who is increasing everyone’s costs? Or is it that Government increases in Tax, over burdened regulations, massive increases in State employed staff, the net zero burden budget busting energy cost etc. all created and maintained by Government are notthing to do with inflation?
January 27, 2023
And who pumped up quantitative easing (£895bn)
January 27, 2023
Why has the government failed to repeal the Climate Change Act instead of making pathetic attempts at mitigation? Carbon is harmless, the Tory Party is harmful and is harming us in so many ways through
climate insanity, mass immigration and engaging us in foreign wars which are none of our business.
I suspect most of them are so thick they don’t even understand the damage they are doing and believe their unpopularity is undeserved otherwise they would change course.
January 27, 2023
Do you think any politician has the gorm to see the truth in your statement, I dont! I am just looking forward to sacking them. I believe Coco the clown and the raving loony party would do a better job than most of the MPs we are saddled with, an God help us if Sur Kneeler Starmer gets a chance to stir in some red!
January 27, 2023
Hunt today said ‘On one day, on a rather windy December 30th, we actually got 60 percent of our electricity from renewables, mainly wind.’
So what? On MOST days wind generated electricity doesn’t provide enough to light more than 3 lightbulbs per house in UK.
So without importing we will stay in the dark and in a very cold home.
January 27, 2023
At current auction clearing prices UKA carbon allowances are set to raise about £5bn for the Treasury this calendar year. The result will be electricity costing about £7bn more than it should do, with some of that being taken in windfall taxes. It is indeed bizarre that these imposts are then subject to relief via mechanisms to reduce electricity bills, while the windfall taxes are resulting in a collapse of investment in the North Sea – desperately needed to increase supply and help get gas prices lower, thus reducing the need for bill subsidies – and probably in generating assets.
BEIS just announced its Capacity Market auction aspirations, including a gigantic 5.8GW of firm capacity to be acquired on one year’s notice. The previous T-1 auction failed to procure its target capacity, with only 5GW being offered, and we are seeing the consequences in frequent capacity shortages. This one will be hampered by the less friendly taxation environment. The target reveals that the government will be forced to keep open coal and nuclear capacity that is due to shut or see shortages become more common.
January 27, 2023
It all sounds like this government is up to no good.
January 28, 2023
Maddening to see that we are subsidising windmills to the tune of £138bn by 2028. Let them compete, John, your constituents are getting fed up with greenery. Carbon dioxide does not affect the weather. Read it up John. – before we are doomed by idiot Gummer