George Trefgarne

Will Rishi Sunak admit the truth about Net Zero?

Rishi Sunak (Credit: Getty images)

Grant Shapps, the energy secretary, popped up on television at the weekend to explain that the cost of installing a heat pump is only about £3,000, the same as a gas boiler. Hmm. Good luck with that.

That number is only true once a £5,000 grant from the government (of which only 90,000 are available) has been considered. It ignores all the costs of insulation and pipework. A friend of mine with a heat pump says about £15,000 is a more accurate number.

A lower carbon economy is a good thing, but the Net Zero policy as legally implemented in the UK has been a disaster

Inflation, largely a consequence of energy costs, remains the biggest issue not just in Britain but the world right now. We feel it particularly acutely here because UK inflation remains stubbornly high, partly due to our daft energy policy and the delusional state of discussion of this critical subject in the City, Westminster, universities, and the media.

A close watching of Prime Minister’s Questions last week was a reminder of this. There was a total of six questions about energy. The latest public opinion and social attitudes survey from the Office for National Statistics found that a resounding 93 per cent believe that the cost of living is the most important issue facing the country, while 51 per cent are worried about the cost of food and 48 per cent about the cost of energy. Those are big numbers.

Rishi Sunak’s answers at PMQs made more sense than the cries of his detractors and offered a hint of something more rational than we have now. It raises the seductive possibility that if he adopts the same practical and pragmatic approach he has to other subjects, he might recover from the impossible hole he finds himself in. 

Sir Keir Starmer’s signature policy is to raise £13 billion by increasing the windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas companies.

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