Why the Budget's decarbonisation is damaging and needs scrutiny
Since the publication of the first budget of the new Labour government there has quite rightly been an outcry about the tax and spending decisions made. Scorn, anger and frustration have been expressed from pensioners, small businesses, farmers, doctors, schools about the impact of the measures.
The anger is justified because so many of the measures in the budget, represent the blatant breaking of promises made a few months earlier during the general election campaign. Some of the decisions are nothing short of pure hypocrisy because in opposition the Labour Party opposed them. Individuals and businesses have a right to be concerned that the budget is going to stymie growth, impact on investment, make us all worse off and result in further taxes to balance the books and pay for future public sector spending.
The excuse offered for the draconian measures in the Budget don’t stand up. The mythical black hole inherited from the Tory government wasn’t an issue before the election indeed the chancellor assured the public that her plans were fully costed and taxes would not increase. Oddly enough even after identifying the black hole the government went on a spending spree of wage increases, setting up a multi billion pound Great British energy quango and announcing £25bn spend on putting CO2 into black holes in the ground. No wonder there is widespread scepticism about the need for a raid on our pockets, property and profits.
I suspect that many of the MPs on the Labour benches who cheered enthusiastically for the budget last week may not be so cocky in a years time.
Regardless of how bad the budget was my concern is that the real damage which this government is going to do to the UK economy and our lives has received little scrutiny or attention in parliament and unfortunately is unlikely to do. I am referring to the drive to decarbonise our electricity supply by the net zero zealot who is now our energy minister. In a House of Commons which is dominated by people obsessed with climate change, and who have either lost their critical facilities or are scared to use them in the face of the well organised green lobby, there is no questioning of the cost of decarbonising electricity in terms of investment needed, jobs lost, energy security or energy bills.
Lets be clear about what is required to achieve Milliband’s goal. We are turning our backs on power generation which by its nature can be located close to where it is going to be used, and can be ramped up or down in line with demand. The infrastructure is already in place and we have at least 150 years worth of fuel in the form of gas under ground in the UK.
We are replacing this with wind and solar for which we will have to build the new generating plant. By the nature of this kind of energy it has to be in remote places and then the energy carried to where it is required. The main suppliers of the technology and the resources needed are the Chinese. The energy produced will be intermittent and we therefore have to keep a backup system to ensure continuous supply. Since this backup system which will be mostly gas will only be used intermittently the costs of the power when called on is already priced at up to 22 times the price that it would be if the gas generators were being used as they should.
We already know some of the costs. Forty billion pounds per year will need to be invested to meet the targets set. Hundreds of miles of new power lines will have to be built in order to carry the power from the remote areas where it will be generated to where it will be used. Planning laws are going to be changed to stop the public objecting to their countryside being destroyed or houses being devalued. Since this investment has to be paid for electricity bills will have to go up increasing fuel poverty and costing thousands of jobs in energy intensive industry.
This is not speculation. The UK has the highest energy bills in Europe. Already we have lost all our aluminium industry, most of our steel industry, oil refining and are due to lose over 100000 jobs in the oil and gas industry. These are all strategic industries sacrificed on the altar of net zero.
While we are doing this damage to our economy our main competitors are quite rightly investing in the cheapest sources of energy available. The debate about our changing climate and its impact is a legitimate to engage in, but it must conducted with the full facts of the costs of reducing our carbon emissions and how or whether that impacts on the worlds climate especially since the main producers of CO2 are happily pumping it out as they seek to achieve the goals of improving their own economic performance and access to cheap energy for their own people.
Sammy Wilson has served as Chief Whip of the Democratic Unionist Party in the House of Commons since 2019. Wilson has served as the Member of Parliament for East Antrim since 2005.
