compound aye 🦠

Would you rather have clean electricity or cheap electricity? What if you could have both? It's no secret that Net Zero is making Britain poorer and weaker. But now, for the first time, experts have revealed the true impact Net Zero is having on our electricity prices. @ukonward’s report is the most detailed analysis of our electricity system that has ever been done in British politics. By crunching the numbers, they have calculated that if we scrapped Net Zero and focused on making electricity cheap instead, we would save consumers over £320 billion on their electricity bills by 2050. That's the equivalent of around £540 for every household, every year, for the next two decades. Our electricity would still be nearly 80% clean – some of the cleanest in the world, in fact – by using a bit more gas and a lot more nuclear. But it would also be much cheaper. We have the highest electricity prices in the developed world – and that's bad for families, businesses, and the environment. When I was appointed Energy Secretary in 2023, I started to uncover some of the true hidden costs of relying on wind and solar. We need to pay for back-up power when the wind doesn't blow, and for the wind farms to turn off when it's too windy, and for all the pylons to transport the electricity from the offshore wind farms to where it's actually needed. I was astonished that these costs, which end up on your bills, were being ignored. That is when I realised Net Zero had to go. I commissioned an official analysis of these costs because the public deserves to know the truth, too. However, when Ed Miliband took over as Energy Secretary after the general election in 2024, he cancelled that analysis. Why? Because he knew it would expose that his promise to cut your bills by £300 was always a fantasy. In fact, bills have gone up by £300 instead. This major new report by Onward finished the work I started three years ago, taking into account the extra costs of renewables and showing that making electricity cheap is better for the environment. Even by their own standards, Labour's Net Zero obsession is failing. Most of our emissions come from cars and home heating. Yet sky-high electricity bills are making it impossibly expensive for ordinary people to choose cleaner alternatives. The current approach means higher prices and higher emissions. That is why Kemi Badenoch and I have changed the policy we inherited from our predecessors and pledged to scrap Net Zero and put cheap, reliable, abundant energy first.

Kemi Badenoch declared that the Aberdeen South by-election was going to be a referendum on our oil and gas industry. The election of the Conservative candidate Douglas Lumsden – on almost 50% of the vote – proved her right. Douglas has spent two decades working in the oil and gas industry, so he knows more than most what is at stake because of Labour’s ban on new licences and the crippling taxes they are imposing on the sector. We are losing a thousand jobs a month as Labour’s policies take their toll. Families are making the agonising calculation of whether to uproot and move abroad, or stay and watch as the industry that built their city is suffocated by a government that has decided it is worth sacrificing on the altar of Net Zero. Aberdonians can see that just on the other side of the North Sea, the Norwegian oil and gas sector is thriving. Norway is drilling new wells, reopening old fields, and making new discoveries – including some which butt right up against the border they share with us. Only someone as deluded as Ed Miliband could think that oil and gas deposits respect geopolitical borders drawn down the middle of the North Sea. The truth is that none of this matters to Ed. He doesn’t care about the thousands of people who are losing their jobs, or the fact that we are becoming more dependent on foreign imports with higher emissions and harming our economy. He doesn’t engage with any of the arguments. He is much more comfortable repeating tired old slogans about 'climate leadership' and 'green jobs’. This is an ideological crusade and nothing will make him admit he is wrong. Which is why the result in Makerfield should concern us as much as Aberdeen encourages us. Andy Burnham is now in Parliament – and the job destroyer-in-chief is reportedly set to be rewarded with a promotion to Chancellor. Given the damage he has already done to Aberdeen and other vital industries like refining, chemicals, and ceramics, the prospect of Ed Miliband being put in charge of the British economy should fill every family with dread. The result in Aberdeen South was a vote to return to energy realism. It was a vote to end Labour’s mad ban on new licences, scrap the taxes that are crippling the industry, and to finally give the go-ahead to the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields that have been sat on Ed Miliband’s desk gathering dust for a year. That is the argument that Douglas will make as he takes his seat in Parliament this week, and it is the argument that the Conservatives will continue to make at every opportunity.