Net Zero Budget ‘A Hammer Blow’ Aimed At UK Households

Jeremy Hunt’s budget was symptomatic of the problems with the Conservative Party, giving the impression of a government that is all but directionless because of the division in its parliamentary ranks between, on the one hand, the green blob and on the other, a rump of old fashioned Conservatives, desperately trying to stop their colleagues from driving the party and the country into oblivion.

So on the one hand we had what was claimed to be a dramatic backtracking on the boiler tax and, on the other hand, a new ocean of subsidies for renewables. [emphasis, links added]

On closer examination, there is rather less to the boiler tax retreat than meets the eye. The policy will remain in place, but the fines on boiler manufacturers, without which it is toothless, will not be introduced in the next twelve months.

Insiders, we are told, are saying that the necessary secondary legislation will not even be brought before Parliament this year, and thus almost certainly not under the current administration.

Whether this amounts to a hill of beans is hard to say. Is it all a ruse to kick the policy into the long grass, while allowing Green Blob ministers Graham Stuart and Lord Callanan to save face?

Or is the Green Blob assuming that Labour’s Ed Miliband will simply do the dirty on the British public in 2025? We will have to wait and see.

The contrast with the new wave of subsidies is astonishing.

With the government having awarded astonishing price increases to the sector last year, a total of £1.4 billion of new subsidies is expected, a total that amounts to around £50 per household.

This is another hammer blow aimed at the hard-pressed public.

It can’t go on of course, but it is surely beyond doubt that the damage being done to our way of life by such irrational policies will be catastrophic.

Top photo by Simon Walker/Wikimedia Commons: 2023 Spring Budget speech as delivered by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt