Miliband Failing to Cut Household Energy Bills, Says Climate Change Committee

Ed Miliband has failed to make any progress on cutting household energy bills, the Climate Change Committee has warned, as it also called on ministers to curb the public’s use of air travel and ban new homes from using gas. The Telegraph has more.

The quango said in a damning new report that the Energy Secretary has not done enough to remove Net Zero levies from bills, which is making electricity too expensive.

This failure means the UK remains at risk of missing its 2030 clean power target, it said, as inflated energy costs deter consumers from switching to electric cars and heat pumps.

Its research found that green levies are adding £500 to heat pump running costs each year.

“The Government has made no clear progress on removing policy costs since the election,” the report said. “Making electricity cheaper remains our first recommendation.”

As part of its latest recommendations, the committee also called on ministers to curb emissions from Britain’s aviation sector and ban all new homes from connecting to the gas network.

“By far the most important recommendation we have for the Government is to reduce the cost of electricity, both for households and for businesses and industry as well,” said Professor Piers Forster, CCC chair.

“If we want the country to benefit from the transition to electrification, we have to see it reflected in the utility bills, and that is our biggest recommendation – one that we have yet to see this Government deliver.” …

Mr Miliband thanked the CCC and said: “The only way to get bills down for good is by becoming a clean-energy superpower and we continue to work tirelessly to deliver clean power for families and businesses.”

Worth reading in full.

Stop Press: The owner of one of Britain’s biggest chemical plants has said it will close, despite Keir Starmer’s just-launched Industrial Strategy. According to the Telegraph, “Saudi Aramco-owned Sabic said on Wednesday that it had decided to shut the Olefins 6 ‘cracker’ facility in Teesside permanently following a review of ‘competitiveness'”.

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transmissionofflame
9 months ago

How do these twats propose to “make electricity cheaper”? There are two ways: 1) Increase taxes and subsidise it more, which is just shifting/hiding the cost, so it’s not really cheaper 2) Reverse every single policy they support/advocate

I’ve got an idea – I think Ferraris should be cheaper. Can’t the government do that? I’m sure they tried something like that in Venezuela:

Venezuelan price controls, implemented to curb inflation and make basic goods affordable, ultimately led to widespread shortages and economic hardship. These measures, particularly when coupled with profit limits and strict regulations, disincentivized domestic production and led to a reliance on imports, further exacerbating the situation

RW
RW
9 months ago

How do these twats propose to “make electricity cheaper”?

They don’t. They’re alternatingly reading lines from a mutually aggreed upon script designed by PR experts such that all the right terms appear in the intended order and relation to each other to market a certain set of policies.

Andy A
9 months ago

That’s socialism for you.

RW
RW
9 months ago

Press release Kabuki theatre:

  1. CCC chastizes Miliband for not clean energy superpowering hard enough as people’s electricity bills are too high.
  2. Miliband vows to clean energy superpower much harder because energy bills can only come down once it’s done.

It’s hard to think of a better demonstration that our so-called ‘representative’ political system is completely dysfunctional and that the UK is governed by people who think its population will make a nice and necessary roadkill on the way to achieve their political goals.

For a fist full of roubles

I am afraid that it is more than the cost of energy that is putting people off heat pumps and EVs. EVs are losing two thirds of their value in their first year and most heat pumps do not do what it says on the tin, especially as retrofits.

DiscoveredJoys
DiscoveredJoys
9 months ago

Clearly the answer is to buy a cheap second hand EV and when the battery dies, remove it, and use a horse to pull the remains of the car.

Marcus Aurelius knew
9 months ago

I bet Miliamp would cut his energy bills if we made him live in a cave.

RW
RW
9 months ago

Getting rid of useless old politicians by fly-tipping them somewhere in the countryside is illegal!

transmissionofflame
9 months ago
Reply to  RW

Funny I was thinking about fly tipping while driving down the A10 the other day. At certain points there are big signs on the grass verges telling us that fly tipping is illegal. Signs paid for by me and others through taxation. If those signs were not there, would anyone think that fly tipping was NOT legal? No, they would not. If you are a fly tipping kind of person, would a sign put you off? No, it would not.

So the signs are just performative. What a sad world we live in sometimes.

Gezza England
Gezza England
9 months ago

If we removed the EU Landfill Tax then it would be free or much cheaper for people to dump stuff legally. The fly tipping epidemic is because it is cheaper and is now an organised crime with little punishment to worry about.

transmissionofflame
9 months ago
Reply to  Gezza England

I didn’t know there was an EU Landfill Tax. YouGov emailed me today claiming that 56% think we should have stayed in the EU and 31% think we should have left…

Ralph Mellish
Ralph Mellish
9 months ago
Reply to  Gezza England

Try an FOI request to your local authority to ask how many people have been prosecuted for fly tipping in the previous 12 months? I did. The answer came back as zero, not one! Whilst they waste thousands driving around clearing up after them..
I was going to suggest hidden camera’s (dead cheap) but I lost the will to live …

mike r
mike r
9 months ago

It’s either cheap, reliable electricity which means North Sea gas powered generators, or expensive intermittent supply based on Chinese wind farms and solar panels. So which is it to be?

Tonka Rigger
9 months ago
Reply to  mike r

As if you need ask…

kev
kev
9 months ago

All’s well in Clown World, just say what the future needs to be, and it shall be so!

Purpleone
9 months ago

‘Green energy costs add £500 to the annual running cost of a heat pump…’

where do these f*€£%@* idiots think the subsidies come from to pay for their ‘upgrade’ in the first place? – it beggars belief what they are saying…

Lewin
Lewin
9 months ago

The CCC needs to be disbanded immediately, it is an unaccountable body operating on flawed assumptions, the first of which is that either doubling or halving the GB emissions of carbon Dioxide will have any meaningful effect

BevGee
BevGee
9 months ago

“…the Climate Change Committee has warned, as it also called on ministers to curb the public’s use of air.”

Fixed it.

Tedward
Tedward
9 months ago

Why do the Brits keep electing people who want to torture them?

Gezza England
Gezza England
9 months ago
Reply to  Tedward

Lack of choice. Reform are offering a hope of something better.

Gezza England
Gezza England
9 months ago

The 2030 target was never achievable from the first second it was announced it is just these people are too stupid to understand why.

inamo
inamo
9 months ago

“By far the most important recommendation we have for the Government is to reduce the cost of electricity, both for households and for businesses and industry as well,” said Professor Piers Forster, CCC chair.

“And so say all of us…”

The Cognitive Dissonance is strong in this one.

transmissionofflame
9 months ago
Reply to  inamo

I think they should be more bold and announce they will reduce the cost of everything.

Tonka Rigger
9 months ago

Bending over backwards and going into contortions to try and get round the elephant in the room.

IT’S NOT WORKING AND IT NEVER WILL.

To quote the movie, “Hubris, sheer f&#%ing hubris…”

RTSC
RTSC
9 months ago

They’re not going to make the production of Unreliable-Intermittent electricity cheaper. They’re just going to switch the massive subsidies it gets from electricity onto gas consumption, to make gas more expensive …. known as Robbing Peter to Pay Paul.

Old Brit
Old Brit
9 months ago

I love the whole idea of going back to windmills. What about farm horses ? Have we forgotten that technology ?