A load of hot air

TIt seems silly to tax the energy source to which you want people to move

HERE’S something pretty peculiar in our national energy system when, in general, country people pay more towards Britain going green than townsmen. The UK’S huge success in ditching coal and moving to renewable energy has been paid for by a precept on electricity bills—none of the cost is charged on gas. Therefore, the 80% of people who are on the gas grid only pay on the electricity and get their heating free of the tax. Most of the other 20% live in rural areas, off the gas grid, and are often bound to use more electricity: they inevitably pay more.

The change to renewables is utterly necessary and a real achievement when we remember that the UK started with practically no wind or solar generation; these now often supply 50% of our needs. Offshore wind goes from strength to strength and the Prime Minister has promised an even bigger growth over the next decade. Wind and solar are now the cheapest way to make electricity and that is a crucial factor because we’re going to have to move our heating from gas to electricity if we’re to reduce our emissions to meet net zero. It does, therefore, seem particularly silly to tax the energy source to which you want people to move and not tax the one they need to forsake. What’s more, if the tax is moved to gas, those who have both won’t see much change, but those who can’t get gas will get a real boost. That will right the unfairness of the present system and help towards the just transition to net zero to which the Government is rightly committed. The trouble is that our attitudes have to undergo fundamental change. Gas was once lauded as the clean alternative to coal. We now know it’s the prime and continuing cause of carbon emissions from homes and offices. Yet we all grew up with the earlier image, one which was assiduously cultivated by the gas industry. No slogan has been more powerful than ‘natural gas’. It was a tagline that made it possible to replace the whole of Britain’s gas system, retrofit or replace every gas appliance and turn gas into the nation’s favourite form of heating. Instead of being connected with the dirty, smelly business of coal-fired gasworks on the wrong side of town, ‘natural gas’ was seen as cheap, immediate and home produced. However, it’s cheap because it doesn’t carry the costs it imposes; the gas consumer doesn’t pay for the damage its emissions cause. Instead, our taxes build defences against flooding, clean up when rivers overtop their banks and foot the bill for the consequences to public health. Gas should be paying a proper carbon tax so its price reflects its real cost. That way, there would be a tax take for the Government to use to help people make the necessary shift to electric heat, through heat pumps and the proper insulation of homes. Not that it’s a simple matter, as last week’s arguments over the Green Homes Grants showed. Yet, however difficult it is, the Government has to recognise that gas is seriously polluting and must be phased out. And phased is the right word. People won’t change overnight and they won’t do it without help. A serious energy-efficiency programme is the only way we’ll stymie climate change in time. Shifting the tax will make it easier to choose right; gradually increasing it until it reflects the true cost of carbon will release the funds to help us all change to the real natural energy— renewable electricity.