DURING the General Election, Labour promised they would reduce utility bills by £300. It was a bold promise.
Now Ed Miliband doesn’t dare repeat the claim. In fact, energy bills are set to shoot up this winter. The energy price cap will rise by ten per cent for the average household this month.
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This price hike comes just as Labour takes the winter fuel payment away from 10million pensioners. OAPs on as little as £13,000 could be up to £600 worse off.
Tragically, thousands of vulnerable older people will die from the cold. Labour must be held accountable.
And after all her talk of not raising taxes on working people, Rachel Reeves now cannot rule out piling extra duty on petrol, either.
British motorists already pay some of the highest fuel taxes in Europe. A hike at the Budget would hammer millions of working people, as well as the most vulnerable who rely on cars to get around.
READ MORE ON FUEL DUTY HIKE
Make no mistake — this is a tax paid by millions of working people every time they fill up at the pump.
Labour is a party of the metropolitan elite and just don’t get how important cars are to people across the country.
It’s why, as a Treasury Minister, I backed The Sun’s Keep It Down campaign — and froze the duty.
But Labour is a party of the metropolitan elite and just don’t get how important cars are to people across the country.
Their Net Zero zealotry means that they want to price millions out of driving.
But it doesn’t stop there.
Astonishingly, they are still committing to banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, even though the tech and charging points won’t be ready.
After 100 days, Labour’s pledges to lower energy bills are already unravelling.
It’s the latest in a long list of broken promises.
But my real fear is that it’s only going to get worse from here. Much worse.
Why? Because of Ed Miliband’s crazy plans to try to “decarbonise” the entire grid by 2030 — in just six years’ time.
Such a rapid change can only lead to bills spiralling. Or worse, blackouts across the country.
No respected expert thinks it’s possible.
But Ed Miliband is pressing on regardless, sacrificing our economy on the high altar of Net Zero.
It’s reported that he will impose heat pump targets next year, in what the industry has warned will lead to a “boiler tax” for households.
Labour doesn’t seem to understand that there are no prizes for reaching Net Zero first.
We only emit one per cent of global emissions, so we shouldn’t rush to decarbonise at the expense of working people nor the industries that drive our economy.
Of course, most people want the UK to do its bit to reduce emissions.
But we’re not fools. We know there are clearly trade-offs we have to balance against.
Such as ensuring our energy security and keeping prices low.
Or, indeed, preserving our agricultural land, food security and countryside.
Labour have already started approving enormous and ugly solar farms that will sprawl across our precious farmland.
That’s only going to leave us more dependent on foreign imports of food.
I say: solar panels are for roofs, not farms.
And where are these solar panels made?
Often they are imported from China, where the materials in them are linked to the forced labour of imprisoned Uyghurs.
We are risking a made-in-China energy transition, with all the dangerous consequences for our security.
Meanwhile, Labour are rushing to phase out gas.
That’s all well and good. But when our competitors realise it’s here to stay for the medium term, we risk our energy prices putting British industry out of business.
Not to mention the loss of countless jobs in the North Sea.
They’re not even looking at the serious alternatives — such as speeding up nuclear power. It’s barmy.
I’ve set out a plan to build five new nuclear power stations by 2032 by getting rid of endless environmental impact assessments, simplifying planning and copying designs from countries such as South Korea.
That would generate 28GW of electricity annually — or, put another way, almost a quarter of the electricity we need.
While battery storage technology lags behind, we desperately need nuclear and gas power for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.
But Labour seem to be in denial about the basic physics of this.
The truth is, we need to be more realistic about our energy policy.
In the past 20 years, prices have spiralled fourfold. You can’t keep industries such as steel or heavy manufacturing going when our energy is four times the price of that in other countries.
‘These are mad policies’
There are real decisions to be made here that matter to millions. Not that you’d know it.
MPs rushed through the 2050 Net Zero target in a 90-minute debate.
The Government spent more time analysing the impact of moving to paper straws than changing the entire foundations of our economy.
Like so much of our political debate, democratically elected politicians have washed their hands of responsibilities.
Driving is not a vice. The public did not vote to be colder, poorer, and priced out of their own cars.
The Climate Change Act, passed by Labour in 2008, committed our country to Soviet-style, sector-by-sector, five-year targets for reducing emissions.
If they’re not hit, activist groups can sue the Government.
And they do — even blocking a mine for coking coal used to make steel last month.
It’s made it incredibly difficult to build the critical infrastructure we need and handcuffed the ability of elected politicians to balance decarbonising with energy security and economic growth.
That’s why we need to scrap them.
These are mad policies that are bad for working people.
Driving is not a vice. The public did not vote to be colder, poorer and priced out of their own cars.
We must get serious and scrap these plans.
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