Energy

Thursday

The Spectator

Our enemy is not global warming. In Britain, people are dying of the cold

Fanciful predictions of all the deaths that will result from climate change, decades into the future, are regularly thrown into public debate. Less attention has been given to a real statistic from the here and now, released by the Office of National Statistics this week, which shows the effects of one of the policies designed to tackle climate change: high energy prices. It emerged this week that there were 31,000 ‘excess’ deaths in England and Wales last winter, almost a third more than the previous year. Almost all were, in effect, British pensioners who died of the cold. It’s odd: Britain is a rich country with a massive welfare state

Friday

Guy Newey

Renewable costs on bills to double due to European target

As officials try to meet the Prime Minister’s promise to roll back the ‘green levies’ and cut the ‘green crap’, lots of attention has focused on the Energy Company Obligation (ECO), the Coalition’s flagship energy efficiency policy. Its aim is to improve the state of the UK’s woeful housing stock and to reduce the amount of heating people use. The scheme is far from perfect. It offers too many subsidies to expensive measures like solid wall insulation, rather than much cheaper ones, such as loft insulation. Also, it has yet to show support for charity incentives that show people how to use less energy. But the general ambition is right. The

Thursday

Will Straw

Why the Right is wrong about 'the green crap'

The Conservative flirtation with environmentalism was never much more than a branding exercise. Now it is over. Today David Cameron wants to ‘cut the green crap’. Perhaps the Prime Minister has been influenced by David Rose’s cover piece in last week’s Spectator — which encouraged the government to repeal the Climate Change Act, abolish its targets, and stop the Energy Bill coming into force. Strong stuff. But let’s suppose the government really were to follow Rose’s strategy, what would happen? A shale gas revolution? Don’t bet on it. As the energy company Cuadrilla has admitted, domestic fracking would have an ‘insignificant‘ impact on prices. The US, which has seen prices fall,

Monday

Sebastian Payne

Christmas lights are not the answer to expensive energy

It’s tough in Scotland. Faced with the prospect of a bitingly cold winter, fuel poverty and abandoning the Union, some of its residents have taken extreme measures to survive. ITV News reports that Darrel Piper of Dumfries has decided to heat his home with Christmas decorations instead of paying to run his heating system: ‘The 40-year-old says that he puts £30 in the electricity meter every fortnight and £5 in the gas meter to use for cooking. He says that if he didn’t have the lights it would cost £60 a fortnight for the gas and electricity.’ Although Mr Piper apparently doesn’t leave the lights on when he’s out, and

Friday

John O'Neill

Poinsettias are just one victim of the energy crisis. Who'll be next?

‘For millions of families’, the Telegraph reports today, poinsettia ‘is as much a festive favourite as turkey and Christmas trees’. Which is odd given that they’re tropical plants which like to be grown at a balmy 20 degrees. But we can expect fewer of them this year because the UK energy crisis means energy bills are up by almost a third for some growers this year. The plants aren’t worth heating. We could see a million fewer of them grown here this Christmas than five years ago, so suppliers are having to bring in lower-quality stock from the continent to meet demand. Will Ed Miliband pledge a price freeze on poinsettias? And show

Thursday

Louise Gray

Are climate change talks getting dirty?

Warsaw – As reports flood in of devastation in the Philippines,  pressure is growing on ministers attending United Nations talks in Poland to prove that on-going climate change talks are not a waste of money. While it is impossible to blame a single event on climate change, the World Meteorological Organisation has warned that warming oceans and rising sea levels make the impact of ‘super storms’ like Typhoon Haiyan far worse and, perhaps, more frequent. So, what are our leaders doing about it? Well, 10,106 people have gathered in a football stadium in Warsaw to produce more hot air discussing a global deal to cut emissions. The annual UN jamboree is not

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 podcast: Blackout Britain, the rudeness of John Bercow and breaking the immigration taboo

Is Britain on the verge of an energy crisis? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, the Mail on Sunday’s David Rose discusses how Britain’s choice green energy over efficient energy has put us on a path to disaster, and why it is politicians, not the Big Six energy firms, who are blame for the coming crisis. Would repealing the Climate Change Act make any difference? And will a significant policy change only come if the lights go out? Douglas Murray also examines Paul Collier, the man who has made it OK for the left to talk about immigration. After the negative reception of David Goodhart’s book on immigration, can

David Rose

Blackout Britain — why our energy crisis is only just beginning

BASF, the world’s largest chemical company, has been headquartered in Germany since before the country formally existed. Founded in 1865 by the industrial pioneer Friedrich Engelhorn, it still occupies the vast site on the banks of the Rhine at Ludwigshafen where its first dye and soda factories were built. A third of its staff are employed in Rhineland Palatinate. It is a global company, yet as German as Goethe and gummi bears. A few days ago Kurt Bock, the firm’s chief executive, warned that its Ludwigshafen plant may soon be forced to close, with BASF’s German jobs relocated elsewhere. The reason, he said, was Germany’s soaring energy costs and the

Tuesday

David Blackburn

While we wait for George Osborne, Grant Shapps takes to Buzzfeed to talk about energy policy

The energy debate is in stasis. Everything, it seems, hangs on the contents of the Autumn Statement. EDF has announced a price rise; bills will go up by an average 3.9 per cent, which is considerably lower than the rest of the Big Six. Yet the company made clear that maintaining low prices will depend on George Osborne. A spokesman said: ‘If the Government makes bigger changes to the cost of its social and environmental schemes than EDF Energy has anticipated, the company pledges to pass these savings onto customers. However, if changes to social and environmental programmes are less than anticipated, the company may have to review its standard variable prices

Saturday

James Forsyth

There mustn't be a north / south divide when it comes to fracking

Michael Fallon, who among his many roles is the minister in charge of fracking, has told the Telegraph’s Jame Kirkup that ‘right across the South’ people should prepare for fracking coming to a neighbourhood near them. Considering that fracking will bring with it jobs, growth and cheaper energy this is good news. But it is also good news because it should prevent a north / south fracking divide. There was a danger that fracking would appear to be something that the Tories were happy to have happen in the north but not in their own southern backyards. The former Tory Cabinet Minister Lord Howell’s call for fracking to be concentrated

Friday

John O'Neill

Npower boss warns that price freeze could mean lights out

Ed Miliband’s energy freeze pledge won him ‘political speech of the year’ but has had the unintended (yet inevitable) consequence of throwing the energy market into a spasm. The head of Npower, Paul Massara, has said that the political uncertainty means we may not have enough power to cover demand. He has told BBC Hardtalk:- ‘The amount of spare capacity to meet the peak requirement has dropped from somewhere around 15 per cent to five… and unless the UK can create a politically stable environment to attract new capital, that capital will not come in… The more government creates uncertainty with things like price freezes or other changes, it means there’s

Thursday

James Forsyth

The next election will break all the rules

Ed Miliband’s aides used to scurry around the parliamentary estate, their shoulders hunched. A look in their eyes suggested that they feared their boss’s harshest critics were right. But times have changed. Now Team Ed marches with heads high. The success of his pledge to freeze energy prices has given them a warm glow. Five weeks on from the Labour leader’s conference speech, his commitment still dominates political debate. It has boosted his personal ratings, helped his party increase its support in the polls and convinced his supporters that he might be Prime Minister after the next election. In these circumstances, one might expect the Tories to be panicking. But

Alex Brummer

Should you invest in nuclear power companies? 

Power companies are the new banks as far as the public is concerned — but does that mean they’re not worth putting your money in? In any troubled marketplace there are always stocks to be picked, but current political turbulence makes that an unusually tough challenge in the UK energy sector. Much anger is currently directed at the  ‘big six’ energy groups — Centrica, Scottish & Southern (SSE), Scottish Power, E.on, RWE and EDF — and their pricing power in the domestic market. The recent round of tariff rises, ahead of the winter heating season and in the face of a moderating wholesale market, served to underline the suggestion that

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Ed Miliband's fuel bill and Labour's trappist vow on public finances

It was a doddle for Ed Miliband at PMQs this afternoon. The nation watched agog yesterday as the energy companies deployed a handful of silk-lined suits to justify their price hikes to a parliamentary committee. Miliband arrived at the house knowing that victory was simple. He just had to fuse the Tories and Big Energy in the public mind and then sit back and enjoy the results. But he got ambushed by David Cameron who had a surprise document up his sleeve. Miliband’s fuel bill. First Cameron reminded us of his advice to consumers last week. ‘Switch your energy company and save £200.’ This idea had been instantly derided by

Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg hints at HS2 red line for 2015 negotiations

Nick Clegg used his monthly press conference this afternoon to deliver a strongly worded attacked on Labour over its energy price freeze and lengthy, unsolicited defence of what the government is doing to tackle the cost of living. There were some mildly interesting points from the Deputy Prime Minister on energy bills, as he insisted repeatedly that he was a ‘pragmatist’ about how the money for low income and vulnerable households is raised and that talks over how some green and social taxes and levies could be removed from fuel bills were going to continue between now and the Autumn Statement. He also hit back at sacked Lib Dem Minister

Tuesday

Robert Halfon MP

We will never save the planet on the backs of the poorest

Yesterday – in a crunch vote in the House of Lords – Labour were narrowly defeated by 216 votes to 202. The issue? Energy bills. Except, this time, the Labour Party was demanding that your bills should RISE by £125 a year. Confused? The quarrel yesterday was all about the ‘2030 decarbonisation target’ – a technocratic term, which means in essence a new carbon tax on your utility bills. It would be a tax on everything. A tax on your fridge, your kettle, your oven, your TV, and every light-bulb in your home. If Britain were to commit to this now, it would mean locking in expensive forms of electricity

Isabel Hardman

The private polling behind Labour's energy bill swagger

A select committee meeting with the Big Six firms would attract attention in any year when the companies had announced such eye-watering price rises. But it is the political frisson added by Ed Miliband’s energy price freeze pledge that makes this afternoon’s hearing quite so interesting. Labour had a swing in its step anyway as it feels it has successfully spooked the Coalition parties, but it carried out private polling last week, seen first by Coffee House, that underlined this. 70% of voters surveyed by YouGov for Labour thought the government should introduce a price freeze, with 17% rejecting it. When asked whether the the freeze was workable, 68% said

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Off colour Ofgem?

Ofgem is the energy market regulator that is supposed to be examining what it is that is going well or badly in the market. But it doesn’t seem to be doing the greatest job. This week we will hear more details about the annual competition test announced by David Cameron at PMQs last week, but the problem is that Ofgem has only just concluded an examination of this anyway. That review of the retail energy market took two years and published a series of rule changes in June 2013. The changes were designed to address ‘widespread consumer confusion over energy tariffs, poor supplier behaviour and lack of transparency which is

Isabel Hardman

Energy competition heats up

Now that ministers are nearing a deal on those green taxes and levies, they are also trying to highlight their efforts to improve the energy market in general. Privately there were a number of Conservative MPs of a similar persuasion to John Major who I spoke to last week who sympathised with the former Prime Minister’s windfall tax proposal. They argued that the energy companies are benefitting from a broken market, and this tax would simply be a tax on the extra benefits of that broken market. But Greg Barker this morning argued that it would damage investment. He told ITV’s Daybreak: ‘We think we need to balance the demands

Sunday

James Forsyth

Coalition parties near a deal on energy bills

The good news for the Cameroons on energy is that it looks like they’ll get an agreement by the Autumn Statement to take at least some of the green levies off energy bill. The bad news is that this means that the debate sparked by Ed Miliband’s pledge to freeze energy prices for 20 months if elected is going to continue until, at least, December 4th. An agreement between Cameron and Clegg on energy bills does now appear to be close. The Lib Dem anger at Cameron using PMQs to try and bounce them into a set of concessions has been replaced by a fast-moving negotiation. As one senior Number