Energy Policy

We had a major problem even before the Ukraine war.

The growth in heavily subsidised renewable energy has led to over £10 billion of inflation-linked subsidies every year with an extra £5 billion of annual related network operating and balancing costs. This totals £15 billion every year, approximately £500 per household directly or indirectly. Much of the renewable industry is overseas owned, meaning they are making vast profits at British consumers’ expense. Renewables are unreliable when the wind does not blow, so they need the insurance backup of gas generating capacity, which adds significantly to costs due to duplication.

In wartime situations the Government must control the price of critical production like energy. This happened in WW2. The Reform UK plan works as follows:

• Require all UK energy producers to sell to UK suppliers only at the average 2021 price.
• Domestic cap set to average £2,000 per year.
• Business cap set at maximum 35 pence per kwh.
• Extra help still needed for the most vulnerable .
• The above will exist until normal conditions return and the supply crisis is fixed.
• This transforms the Government finances as it puts the cost on the producer not the taxpayer, which is what unsettled markets so much in September 2022. The windfall tax would be scrapped as the producers are no longer making windfall profits under this plan.

Westminster’s Net Zero plans send our jobs and money overseas, making us Net Poorer.

THE SUPPLY CRISIS: MORE SUPPLY = LOWER PRICES

Energy security is of strategic national importance and we must be self reliant. We are blessed with vast different energy resources under our feet that can look after us for at least 50 years or more.

We need a National Planning with Local Compensation scheme to accelerate new energy sources:

• Accelerate gas and oil exploration in the North Sea.
• Build High Efficiency Combined Cycle gas turbines.
• Accelerate the commission of the latest nuclear reactors including small modular ones.
• Unlock the vast reserves of shale gas using the latest safest techniques.
• Restart opencast coal mines using the latest cleanest techniques.
• Accelerate lithium mining in UK to help with electric battery production, instead of relying on less environmentally sound mines overseas.
• No more expensive subsidies for renewables — they must stand on their own merit.

THE REFORM UK PLAN WILL:

• Save huge amounts of emissions by using our own energy treasure compared with the extra CO2 created when importing energy from overseas.
• Save and create many thousands of British jobs in the regions.
• Save households and businesses money.

This is the best and easiest way to unlock vast wealth in the ground for the benefit of us all. We should establish a Sovereign Wealth fund from this, as Norway did so successfully.

Reform UK will create a new win-win model of UK ownership of critical national infrastructure. Certain key utilities including parts of the energy market should be 50% in public ownership, to reduce consumer costs and stop overseas ownership of our critical national infrastructure. The other 50% would be owned by UK pension funds. This will enable a win-win situation, with consumers benefiting from lower prices, the taxpayer benefitting during good years and all benefiting from better management of private sector expertise brought in by the pension funds.

The Government’s current Net Zero plans are destroying British jobs — sending them overseas, especially to China — and are leading to huge increases in domestic bills every year to pay to overseas-owned energy firms. This is both unacceptable and unnecessary. Be under no doubt, Westminster’s Net Zero makes us Net Poorer.

AN HONEST DEBATE ON CLIMATE CHANGE

It is important to be able to debate and discuss issues such as climate change, rather than face the smears and cancellation threats that spread throughout public life.

Reform UK fully accepts that climate change is real, after all it has happened for millions of years based on multiple factors completely outside human control or influence. Warming has of course taken place over the last approximately 150 years, with signs over recent years that it is now leveling off. Humans have had an impact on this global warming, though scientists disagree as to how much. Those who think that getting to Net Zero will stop climate change are in fact just denying reality. Even the IPCC’s latest assessment report admits that if we get to Net Zero, it would take another 200-1,000 years before sea levels stopped rising (hardly definitive in timing but clearly a long way off!). So we would be better to adapt, by spending far less money more wisely, for example on sea level defences where needed. This is more sensible than wasting trillions of pounds trying to stop climate change, when it has always changed and always will change.

There is plenty of climate good news that you will not hear on mainstream news outlets who wish to preach doom and gloom such as:

• The Great Barrier Reef has seen coral cover return to record levels just five years after the consensus of climate experts said it was permanently damaged beyond recovery.
• Extreme weather events have always occurred, but thanks to human adaptation and ingenuity, result in some 96% fewer deaths per year than 100 years ago.
• The earth has increased in greenery over the last 30 years, partly thanks to higher CO2 levels. CO2 is a natural fertiliser, which is essential to plant life via photosynthesis, and without plants humans could not exist!
• The Arctic sea ice cover has increased since a low point in 2012 and is very close to 30 year average levels.
• Overall sea ice cover in Antarctica has not declined in recent decades.
• Polar bear numbers in the Arctic are increasing, not decreasing.

 

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash