Ditching Ed Miliband’s Net Zero Madness Could Save Every Family £1,000 a Year

In the Mail, Reform UK’s Richard Tice argues that scrapping Labour’s “Net Stupid Zero” agenda could save families £1,000 a year. Here’s an excerpt:

This week, Ed Miliband opens his latest renewable energy auction, which allows green developers to bid for lucrative taxpayer-funded contracts.

The eco lobby says the auction, officially titled Allocation Round 7 (AR7), will be the centrepiece of Labour’s plan to decarbonise the grid by 2030, and that this seventh round must be the biggest yet to “keep the dream alive”. 

But it’s a dream Britain cannot afford. Inflation is rising. Food prices are once again on the up. And families across the country are cutting back – not just on holidays or takeaways, but on essentials. …

And one of the biggest contributory factors to this crisis is an issue that almost no one in Westminster wants to talk about: Net Zero and the spiralling cost of Britain’s green energy agenda.

Expensive energy is the grenade exploding Britain’s economic model. It is not just about switching on the lights and heating homes. 

It powers industry, transports goods and underpins every job and price tag. When energy becomes expensive and unreliable, everything else does too. …

For nearly two decades, clueless politicians from Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have clung to a fantasy: that we could eliminate all hydrocarbon use, build a national grid dominated by wind and solar power and suffer no consequences.

The result? At a time of rising demand we are reliant on an unreliable energy supply and lumbered with higher bills. Three-quarters of the rise in electricity bills over the past decade can be attributed to green energy policies and the multi-billion-pound subsidies paid to renewable investors, according to Net Zero Watch. …

Now suppliers are warning that prices will rise again in 2026. Professor Gordon Hughes, a former energy adviser at the World Bank, has warned they could approach 40p per kilowatt hour by 2030 – up from 25p today, which is a catastrophic increase. 

That’s why I took action. Last month, I wrote to major wind farm developers, warning them and their investors to stay away from the AR7 auction. I made it clear that if they press ahead, a Reform government will make them regret it.

As Nigel Farage said a few weeks ago about the renegotiation of green subsidy contracts, investors will see “some haircuts”. Naturally, activists, consultants and subsidy-hunters – the ‘Green Blob’ – erupted in outrage. 

But, if these wind farms go ahead, it will be an act of grave economic self-harm. By putting a spanner in the works of Miliband’s mad plan, we can stop the 20-year rise in bills. By 2030, my letter alone might be saving households £1,000 a year.

Worth reading in full.