Energy strategy is a lost opportunity

THIS month’s hike in the energy price cap threatens to send millions of households into fuel poverty. The increase is to rise again this autumn. Members of the Tory Net Zero Security Group have written

to the Prime Minister urging him to recommence fracking, with the pretext that this will reduce our energy bills. This is, of course, untrue. Like North Sea oil, gas is sold at global wholesale prices. Shale gas is not ‘British’ gas to be sold at a low price for the benefit of UK consumers; it would be Cuadrilla’s gas sold to the highest world bidder solely for the benefit of Cuadrilla’s shareholders.

The best way to save money on energy for UK consumers is to consume less. The government’s recent energy strategy was shamefully remiss in not providing a massive boost to insulating our houses. It is considered that UK has the worst insulated homes in Europe; seemingly even Spanish homes are on average better insulated.

Since David Cameron’s promise in 2013 to ‘cut the green crap’ the rate of insulating homes has crashed. It has been estimated that if insulation had continued to be installed at the same rate as a decade ago, UK households could have saved £1.5bn in the next financial year. Subsequent policy has been no better. Boris Johnson’s government’s Green Homes Grant scheme in 2020 was an administrative disaster, upgrading about 8% of its target number of houses before closing in disarray.

The recent UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report stressed the need for decisive action to take place not in the future, but now. Opposition parties in the

UK are putting forward coherent policies to tackle climate change, including massively increasing home insulation. This creates jobs,

saves energy and CO2 emissions, but also saves us money. It is tragic that the present government’s energy strategy represents such a lost opportunity.

Mike Baldwin Thorverton, Devon