The Lib Dems are cross this afternoon about David Cameron’s PMQs announcements on cutting back on green taxes in energy bills. They are mainly cross because they were only given 30 minutes’ notice of the new policy before MPs crowded into the Chamber for the session, and are insisting that ‘nothing concrete has been agreed’. A source close to Nick Clegg told Coffee House;
‘Generally you would hope that an announcement of government policy would not be handled in this way. There was a quad discussion about this but nothing detailed was put forward and nothing concrete has been agreed.’
The source dismissed briefings from Tory sources that ‘one way or another’ the government would ‘roll back’ some of the levies and taxes, saying: ‘Well there’s only one way that these things happen in a Coalition and that’s if we agree to it.’ And as for those Tories suggesting privately that this is somehow revenge for Nick Clegg’s new public stance on free schools, the source said: ‘The Tories who are briefing that need to calm down and have a cup of tea. It’s not right to see this as linked, it’s different to the free schools policy because that was post-2015 policy.’
So does this mean that there is still stalemate at the top of the Coalition, in spite of David Cameron saying ‘and I can tell the House today’ in the Commons this lunchtime? Actually, the Lib Dems are trying to say that they are happy to look at any way of reducing fuel bills ‘that doesn’t reduce our commitment to the environment’. Which means that unless the government spends more money or does something along the lines of what John Major suggested, the levies are here to stay.
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