British Gas Boss Warns Miliband Against “Outrageous” Energy Bill Divide
Making families with gas boilers pay higher green taxes than those with heat pumps would be an “abomination”, says the boss of British Gas. The Telegraph has the story.
In a stark warning to Ed Miliband, Chris O’Shea said that removing Net Zero levies from electricity bills would punish the poor and amount to a “terrible distortion of the market”.
It comes amid reports that the Energy Secretary is considering stripping green levies from electricity in a bid to encourage the adoption of heat pumps.
Instead, the costs would be moved on to gas, making a boiler more expensive to run.
Mr O’Shea, the chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica, warned Mr Miliband to resist such an “outrageous” overhaul and instead focus on protecting billpayers from the soaring cost of Net Zero.
“It’s a preposterous idea,” Mr O’Shea told the Telegraph. “The idea you’d put the levies on gas bills will mean those better-off people with heat pumps will be subsidised by those poorer people with gas boilers. That’s nonsense.
“I think those of us with the broadest shoulders should help those of us who have the most need.
“To put them on gas bills would be an abomination, outrageous and a terrible distortion of the market. It would also be unfair because the people [who have] gas boilers the longest will also be those who can least afford to pay higher bills.
“I have heard the argument that it will encourage more people to use electricity. But encouraging people to use subsidised electricity by forcing gas users to pay just doesn’t make any sense.”
Mr O’Shea said the Government should shift the cost of green levies on to general taxation rather than creating an energy bill divide between households.
The Climate Change Committee, a Government quango, has urged Mr Miliband to remove the taxes from electricity bills to encourage more people to buy heat pumps and electric cars.
However, experts have warned such a move risks increasing the average gas bill by £120 a year. …
The Centrica boss also cast doubt over Mr Miliband’s pledge to cut household energy bills by 2030, supposedly aided by Britain’s move to a greener economy.
Mr O’Shea said he was sceptical that the Energy Secretary’s promise to lower bills by £300 this parliament was “achievable”. …
Mr O’Shea was also critical of Mr Miliband’s pledge to ban all new drilling in the North Sea, even though Centrica no longer conducts any exploration activity in the basin.
“I don’t agree with the decision,” he said. “If you take it from an environmental point of view, we import LNG [liquefied natural gas].
“If you produce gas domestically, then it will have a lower carbon content than the LNG that we import. And the reason is the cost of shipping and the cost of turning the gas into a liquid.”
Worth reading in full.
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“The idea you’d put the levies on gas bills will mean those better-off people with heat pumps will be subsidised by those poorer people with gas boilers. That’s nonsense.”
Yep, and that is exactly how the entire Net Zero Collectivist Con has been working since the beginning, mate!
About 85% of UK homes are heated by gas. But better off or not, few people have beat pumps. It is unreasonable to imagine that gas-boiler owners will rip them out to install heat pumps to avoid high gas prices. In fact the cost of doing so would cancel out any saving that using electricity instead of gas might bring, as it would take more than a decade to amortise replacement costs and what about oriole whose boilers are new if nesrky new with maybe another 20 years of life in them. In any case the resources – manufacturing, fitters, electrical infrastructure – required to replace gas central heating with heat pumps don’t exist even in the medium term, so even if many households decided to change over, it would be a long waiting list. It’s down to another lie being exposed: that heat pumps are “more efficient” than gas boilers, therefore it will cost less to heat your home. The lie based in conflating energy efficient with cost efficient, the latter doesn’t necessarily follow the former as it is dependent on input costs, which Ed Dildo-brain didn’t know, but evidently now does because somebody has told him. I think… Read more »
I dunno, I quite like the sound of a beat pump 🤣
Can you take your beating like a man?
If it’s to save the planet, yes, with pleasure, I’ll even beat myself and pay to do it.
They are all turning on Milibrain. Did he really think that people would continue to listen to his idiotic lies once the extortionate bills started to land? Time to start a book on when he gets fired?
He’s not really turning on Miliwat, just arguing about how this monumental scam is dressed up
You can piss off for a start Mr O’Shea. You are either an idiot or a liar.
“Net zero” is a load of nonsense as you surely well know. You’re just arguing about who should pay for it- the consumer or the taxpayer. Amounts to largely the same thing anyway.
Doubtless these tiny theological differences appear more important to true believers.
I think there are people who think that if the government “cuts electricity bills”
that they will be better off.
I agree, the beard thing is his attempt at ingratiating himself to the common man.
Lol
If I still had shares I would vote against this ignorant twat but I sold up to move to better returns such as from oil companies.
As a little side comment… Whether you have a gas boiler or a heat pump, neither will work when there’s no electricity – either because the grid can’t cope with the load, or because some idiot (can’t think who) has decided to scrap all power generation other than wind turbines and solar panels.
It is quite remarkable isn’t it that those pushing for an all-electric World don’t know it will require electricity and the infrastructure to transmit and deliver it to point of consumption?
Details, details… don’t confuse with details.
And a plan to restart a black grid.
“Chris O’Shea said that removing Net Zero levies from electricity bills would punish the poor…”
But…
”Mr O’Shea said the Government should shift the cost of green levies on to general taxation…”
… because the poor don’t pay taxes?
The poor pay income tax, VAT, Excise duty on fags, booze and petrol. Indirect taxes are one of the most regressive taxes for poor people as they cannot avoid them and pay them on essentials like food-stuffs (other than fresh foods), clothing, food in eateries, and other day to day expenses. They therefore take up a greater proportion of income than for wealthier people.
Moron, imbecile, idiot were formerly used as clinical terms to describe degrees of intellectual disability, with idiot being the lowest classification.
Mr O’Shea doesn’t qualify for idiot, his intellectual “ability” does however rank with plankton.
“The poor” is code for ‘people on benefits’. Although they do, clearly, pay the consumption taxes you list, the money they use to pay them has been taken from employed people, hereinafter known as “the rich”.
Very true.
I guess most people on benefits who actually vote, vote Labour but I wonder how many actually do vote.
Milliband, Starmer and Labour a greater threat to this Country than the Germans were, the true vipers in our breast.
Release the sausages, I say!!!
“To put [green levies] on gas bills would be an abomination, outrageous and a terrible distortion of the market,” says Mr O’Shea.
Whereas if they are on electricity bills, they are just fine. In fact, to remove them would be “encouraging people to use subsidised electricity”.
With logic like that, no wonder net zero has doubled our bills in 5 years.