Rishi Sunak is facing a backlash from Tories who insist it is unfair to “punish” households with a £170-a-year green levy on energy bills.
Three Conservative MPs associated with the Net Zero Scrutiny Group have warned ministers against lifting a suspension of the charge announced last autumn to ease the cost of living crisis. [emphasis, links added]
The cost of the levies was shifted from consumer bills to be funded instead by the Government, following a year-long campaign by energy firms and MPs amid spiraling gas, electricity, and food prices.
But The Telegraph has learned that the Treasury will stop covering the charge from the beginning of July, after just nine months.
Craig Mackinlay, the MP for South Thanet, who spearheads the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, said it was the “wrong time” to increase costs given the sting of rising interest rates, and urged the Government to instead remove all green levies permanently.
Greg Smith, the MP for Buckingham, said there is “no place” for the charge on utility bills, insisting it is “simply not fair to financially punish people in this way.”
“Utility bills should be about what you use and no more,” he said.
Andrew Lewer, the MP for Northampton South, said: “Many of my constituents are going to be dismayed if this levy is reimposed and I have already made my views known to ministers about it.
“A legally binding net zero target by 2050 may just prove a giant folly and the impositions along the way, such as a ban on internal combustion engine sales by 2030 or lumping huge levies on households like this, even more so.” […]
A Treasury source insisted that the move was “not an active decision of this administration.”
By design, the Energy Price Guarantee (EPG) covered the cost of the green levies, the source said. From July, when EPG subsidies will end for most bill-payers, so will the Treasury funding.
Mr. Mackinlay told The Telegraph: “It is good news that energy prices continue to fall with an average 17 percent reduction across combined gas and electricity bills from 1 July.
“However, as the EPG falls away this means a reintroduction of £170 of green levies onto household bills.
“With the Government aiming to halve inflation and leading negotiations with mortgage lenders to create new means to reduce the pain of increased interest rates, this seems to be the wrong time to add costs, especially for net zero measures that the public increasingly despise.
“I’ve long advocated the permanent removal of all green levies and the 5 percent VAT on home energy. This should be the announcement coming from Government.”
Read rest at Daily Telegraph
I just love the way the British seem to think that if the government pays for it then it doesn’t cost them !
Socialist thinking.
there are only two sources of tax :-
You or me !
As delusional as the rest of the Go Green types of loose nuts