By Paul Homewood
Nigel Lawson responds to Greg Clark:
Thirteen months after publication of Dieter Helm’s Cost of Energy Review in October 2017, Greg Clark has at last responded by kicking all Helm’s recommendations into the long grass.
Helm’s conclusion was the most damning ever made by an official report on government policy, warning that continuing with current policy would perpetuate the ‘crisis mentality’ of the energy sector.
‘It will continue the unnecessary high costs of the British energy system, and as a result perpetuate fuel poverty, weaken industrial competitiveness, and undermine public support for decarbonisation,’ Helm concluded.
Commenting on Greg Clark’s ‘After the trilemma’ speech (15 November), Nigel Lawson, whose 1982 speech started energy liberalisation, said:
‘Greg Clark is repeating all the mistakes of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. As Dieter Helm’s excellent report shows, government planning, picking losers and second guessing the market is a disaster in the making.
‘Mr. Clark has rejected Helm’s recommendation of carbon pricing on the grounds that it needs border adjustments to avoid, in his own words, decimating our important industries. As Mr. Clark well knows, the costs of decarbonisation haven’t gone away and his green energy policies impose a higher shadow carbon price, making these industries even more uncompetitive and accelerating their rundown.
‘In particular I take exception to Mr. Clark’s shameless misrepresentation of my views to falsely assert that high energy costs are good for business competitiveness. Mr. Clark admits that British businesses face the highest energy costs in Europe. Mr. Clark’s energy policies are the real threat to their continued survival.’
https://www.thegwpf.com/nigel-lawson-slams-greg-clarks-energy-speech/
One has to ask why the Government ever bothered to ask Dieter Helm to review energy policy, if they were going to ignore it anyway.
Perhaps they thought he would meekly back them?
In reality of course, the Treasury was never going to accept the cost of green subsidies on its books, where it would have to be financed either by taxation or spending cuts. That would mean the Government having to accept full responsibility for its disastrous policies, instead of being able to blame the energy companies.
As for Greg Clark’s concerns about the effect of carbon taxes on industrial competitiveness, the answer is very simple – do away with the Carbon Price Floor, and simply charge the same Carbon Price as the rest of our competitors in the EU.
Unfortunately, the words “Common sense” and “UK Government” don’t seem to go together!
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November 28, 2018 at 06:09AM
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