Net Zero Watch welcomes Government U-turn on Net Zero heating levy
By Paul Homewood
London, 14 June – Net Zero Watch has welcomed the Government’s apparent U-turn on plans for a new levy on household bills.
The levy, introduced as part of the drive to “Net Zero”, was designed to fund the development of hydrogen as an alternative to gas heating. However, it would have hit households with a bill estimated at £120 per year.
According to press reports, the Energy Secretary has now admitted hydrogen will never replace gas boilers, and it appears that the levy will now be dropped.
For months, Net Zero Watch has been informing ministers and MPs about the radical shift in public opinion in much of Europe in response to the cost of energy and cost of living crises.
Governments around Europe are beginning to water down and abandon Net Zero policies. There can be little doubt that the Net Zero U-turns by both Labour and the Conservatives are a clear indication that the cost of living and the costs of Net Zero crisis will become one of the key election issues.
Craig Mackinlay MP, chairman of the parliamentary Net Zero Scrutiny Group, said:
"The cancellation of the proposed £118 Hydrogen Tax on household energy bills is hugely welcome and I hope is the start of a common sense journey for the government on energy policy. When the laudable ambition of Net Zero hits the reality of cost and significant changes to the way we live, the public are understandably turned off as they look at low uptake of the ‘plan’ globally and their ongoing growth on the back of cheap traditional energy.
History is littered with failed and costly government projects. I forecast that many of the wasteful Net Zero plans based on unreliable, fringe technologies will be historically judged in the same way.”
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Good heavens. A flash of reality.
With Nobel laureates and Physics professors saying (in effect) It. Can’t. Be. Done — (and even if it could, would it be a good idea, anyway?) — you would have thought these inconvenient facts of life might have surfaced a little earlier.
Never mind: there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents …..
Shapps is a clueless moron, from crackpot covid traffic/cycle schemes, to this fantasy.
It’s a start! We need a severe Winter to speed up the U-turn.
When using my Chemistry Kit, as a ten-year old, I liked making hydrogen ‘pop.’ The ‘popping’ of hydrogen fantasies is even better.
However, ‘they’ will never give up; and some new attack on rational people will be launched, soon enough.
It’s a start, but there are still the extortionate taxes on petrol and diesel that need drastically reducing, ideally scrapping. Look at what those are doing to the cost of living. Those taxes on diesel affect the price of _everything_
Finally, a voice of reason in the chimera that is hydrogen. It may power the stars, but it has no place in domestic heating systems. What were these fools thinking? The technical problems associated with extremely high pressurse and metal embritalment are insurmountable. The same goes for proposed applications in ICE automotive applications. Forget about this ridiculous idea already.
British gas refusing to install heat pumps in unsuitable homes recently as well.
I have had a suspicion for a while that the Tories were hanging onto NetZero until it’s natural expiration date passed thanks to public opinion. Had they simply refused to implement it, those ignorant of the effects would have been dead against the Conservative party at the next election.
Now public opinion is driving the change, not the government. Watch for the 2024 conservative election campaign telling us all they stopped the imposition of huge cost’s on households by dropping gas boiler bans, EV mandates, heat pumps etc.
Even the labour party are getting in on the act rowing back on their promises.
HMS Politics is a huge ship to stop and turn round, acting only when it’s sure the passengers and crew are about to mutiny.
How could net zero be “laudable” with all the evidence it will fail, and in a nation responsible for only negligible re.ease of manmade greenhousemgases?
Too right, NetZero, a zealots pipe-dream and all based on a false premise.
I’m sure it was never a Tory Governments plan to bankrupt our country to appease the Woke Green clowns?
Important words from Craig Mackinlay MP, chairman of the parliamentary Net Zero Scrutiny Group
” …. cheap traditional energy. ”
If there is no proof that humans are responsible for dangerous climate change then what logical reason is there to consider energy that is not cheap?
Burn coal.
Net Zero policies must be based on group think and/or corruption.
They cannot be scientifically justified by their duped supporters.
There is no proof that humans are responsible for climate change at all, let alone “dangerous”.
” There is no proof that humans are responsible for climate change at all, let alone “dangerous”. ”
Use of “dangerous” sidesteps dealing with arguments regarding local climate change caused by humans e.g. urban heat islands.
It is of course a sensible admission by Shapps that hydrogen is unsuitable for replacing natural gas in domestic heating boilers.
Unfortunately, though, it’ll make the drive to compulsory heat pumps even stronger. Gas boiler manufacturers were trying to stop a ban on gas boilers by saying that they could easily be converted to burning hydrogen. I suspect they didn’t really believe this but it was a useful argument to head off the ban. With Shapps’s admission this argument has been nullified.
This is an interesting observation, and something to consider. Thank you.