Labour Cuts Green Budget By 80%
By Paul Homewood
It’s been the worst kept secret of the year!
Labour has slashed its original £28bn green borrowing plan by four fifths and unveiled a new tax raid on oil and gas giants to bankroll the Net Zero drive.
Sir Keir Starmer announced that his flagship clean energy policy has been downgraded to just £4.7bn a year in the biggest about-turn of his leadership.
Speaking to reporters in Parliament, he blamed the Tories for “maxing out the credit card” and insisted that the original pledge was no longer affordable.
Under the new slimmed down blueprint, public funding for a major home insulation drive has been reduced from a planned £6bn a year to just £1.2bn.
Meanwhile the budget for Great British Energy, a publicly owned energy company that Labour plans to set up, will be handed £1.7bn a year of taxpayers’ cash.
Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said it will be financed by hiking tax on energy producers’ profits from 75pc to 78pc, raising £2.2bn a year.
With oil producers claiming that the proposed hike in windfall taxes will simply close rigs and discourage new investment, it is unlikely that Labour will raise an extra £2.2bn.
And the amounts pledged are so tiny that they will have virtually no effect on emissions. £1.2bn for insulation is a drop in the ocean, and I suspect most of the £1.7bn for Great British Energy will be frittered away.
There had been rumours that the green budget would only be cut to £10bn, so it could have been a lot worse.
More importantly though is that it shows that Ed Miliband has now lost any real influence over Labour policy. It is hard to see how he can remain in post and still maintain any credibility.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Perhaps he should consider taxing green energy 78%.
After all, It’s 9 times cheaper than fossil fuel energy so there must be plenty of money sloshing about in green coffers.
yes, true. But the money sloshing about in green coffers already came from the tax payers via subsidies and levies on energy prices.
Very good point.
I wonder what taxing a Company at 78% might do to that Company? The moron is clearly trying to stop exploration and home produced energy. A policy which destroys energy security and will cost us all dearly.
The cautionary tale of the Golden Goose springs to mind.
Labour (and esp. zealots like Milliband) care not about the destruction of viable industry, only ideology.
Destroy the UK oil industry now and it will not come back. Ever. The North Sea is a mature province and continuation of production depends on declining fields, small discoveries and tiebacks to existing infrastructure. Over tax the industry and the companies will leave. Once the infrastructure, goes, it all goes. There are no elephants to be discovered that would justify future reinvestment.
Its vandalism, destruction of capital, you name it. Criminal.
I think the ghastly secret is leaking out – that UK emits one percent of global CO2 and has no effect on anything let alone world opinion.
It’s only 0.8% now.
1% of 3% of 0.04%….
And there are credible reports that UK is now making <1% of the human emissions. No doubt you are now into the 0.03% range of CO2 emissions.
2019 Manifesto
(Tory) Reaching Net Zero by 2050 with investment in clean energy solutions and green infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions and pollution
(Labour) We will kick-start a Green Industrial Revolution to tackle the climate emergency by shifting to renewable energy, investing in rail and electric cars, and making housing energy efficient to reduce fuel poverty and excess winter deaths
(Tory) We placed a moratorium on fracking
(Labour) We will permanently ban fracking
The Conservatives aim to end new sales of internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035 (revised). Labour manifesto will aim for 2030 ….there’s no change, there’s no difference between parties
There will be when the lights go out.
If as seems likely, Labour are in power, they will blame the Tories for not having more windmills and solar.
Britain and Australia each contribute about one per cent of total emissions while the developing world plus China probably matches that by their annual increase.
So why would we spend a dollar, let alone billions to generate more expensive and less reliable energy from intermittent wind and solar facilities that have a massive environmental footprint?
Because nothing strokes the egos of politicians more than a moral crusade to save the world and all humanity.
Think about what MPs effectively believe: that through net zero policy they can control the weather.
Our country is broke and desperately needs revenues streams…so let’s shut down a guaranteed revenue stream!
How does this policy incentivise anyone? Every O&G company that has better options elsewhere in the world will go after them rather than be exploited in a frankly useless British political landscape.
There’d be few reasons to remain. Perhaps if well investments were already in place and needed covering or maybe existing technical or commercial reasons. Otherwise forget it.
UK O&G tax revenues will inevitably fall and when they do how will useless renewables fill the financial void when those same renewables are net recipients due to endless government subsidies?
I’d say politicians should be careful what they wish for but we’re all sick and tired of warning these clowns. At some point the dice will just have to lie where they fall.
The climate change committee estimates the cost of net zero at £1.4trillion, which is almost certainly a massive underestimate, so at best £4.7billion a year would mean we achieve net zero in 298 years. Maybe some one should mention this to Kier and point out this means he’s pissing in the wind even if there was a problem that needed solving.
I read somewhere a while ago that insulating a home only saves money for the first winter. After that the heating is cranked up a bit the next winter. For most people is a comprise between comfort and budget. Insulation gives more bang for your buck as the saying goes
Jevons Paradox.
Not in any way an actual paradox! Make steak cheaper, I’ll eat more of it. Not a paradox.
Jevon was addressing efficiency, not price. He noted that improved efficiency did not reduce consumption, it increased it.
There is a delicious irony in Labour complaining that a Tory government has spent all the money when that is what they always do. Interesting how since they last were in power the global finance market is far more wary of countries that want to borrow more money when they are already up the the eyeballs in debt. A sort of Financial Fair Play for countries. As far as Miliband goes, as pointed out on GB News this money he stated that Flip Flop Kneeler was as totally committed to this as he was just 7 months ago. Word is Labour were hoping to make it to the budget and then drop the plans while whining that kHunt had given all the money away but it was proving too easy a target for the Tories as they struggled to say how they would pay for their lunacy. I am surprised that the non-doms were not being lined up to pay for it like they are for most of Labour’s spending. What happens in Year ” when the non-doms have all left doesn’t get a mention.
Labour have spent 14 years complaining about Tory “austerity” and that the Tories haven’t spent enough on the NHScand schools and now complain there’s no money.
All the while conveniently forgetting they left the coffers dry in 2010 after the 2008 crash.
Governed by idiots. Led by donkeys. Or whatever the appropriate metaphor is.
Is it really frittering if it’s going to your cronies?
Q: How do you make little British energy?
A: Start with Great British Energy.
Looks like the Diane Abbot school of maths lies behind their estimate of what the addition to oil and gas taxes would raise. £2.2bn for a 3 percentage point increase is fantasy. The entire Energy Profits Levy raised £5.3bn last year, and is a 25% levy. So increasing it to 28% would only raise £0.6bn on unchanged volumes and prices. It wouldn’t take much production loss to see overall revenue decline, given the current marginal tax rate of 75% – just 4%.
Thers great deal of evidence that once you reach certain levels of taxation, its virtually impossible to increase tax revenues no matter what. Either taxes are avoided or what is being taxed is reduced.
Laffer curve is an attempt to quantify it.
Ask anybody, including the public, politicians, mainstream media and power elites, two questions. “What do you understand by 1. Net Zero and 2. De-carbonisation” I guarantee that hardly anybody will have a clear understanding yet they are vehement inn defending policies based on these two undefined terms as well as the catch all term climate change. We are being duped.
Weather control.
If you vote for Net Zero the weather will get better (less extreme, whatever that is).
Considering the British preoccupation with the weather it seems its a no lose strategy for politicians.
Until the lights go out.
“What do you understand by 1. Net Zero and 2. De-carbonisation”
Neither concept withstands logical argument, which partially explains the emotional outpourings from the believers i.e. emotion is used to overwhelm logic.
Starmer (God bless him) has been justifying his U turn by declaring the the Tories (spit that word out to show contempt) “trashed the economy and doubled the debt” – hmmmm interesting, blaming Truss for trashing a economy by producing a budget that promoted growth but was never implemented because of a run on “Gilts”, prompted by the Pension funds who were heavily invested while looking for a return – the debt had by this time already doubled, the bulk of the extra £850billion was incurred during Covid – furlough, track and trace, Nightingale hospitals, PPE and a raft of other measures – but each one could have been voted down by Labour and the Liberals, they actually wanted more spent not the eye watering £850billion. So before Saint Kier walks any further on water without a rubber ring to stop him from drowning in the frothing flem and bile he spews, he should remember the debt was doubled with 100% support, or if your Saint Diane Abbot, 145% support.
We could do with some adults in Parliament, the current crop of Pygmies and the upcoming group are a insult to the intelligence of the Peoples of these Nations.
The scrapping of the £27 billion Green programme is one of the best decisions Sir Kier Starmer could have made. I don’t wish to see the Labour Party running the country, but if he went a bit further and have the courage to lead on stopping the idiotic Net Zero programme, I’m sure he would get in with a thumping majority. It might also see the end of the ridiculous Ed Milliband, and offer Sir Kier the quickest possible route to seeing the upturn of our ruined economy.
There all rowing back some have other factions to manage so need to keep them quiet with other promises but next iteration will see that watered down as well.
Ultimately the populous will select their own self interest now impact is knocking at their door.