From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

I asked for some meat on the bones of Kemi Badenoch’s pledge to scrap Net Zero.

Well, Claire Coutinho has just supplied it!

Her speech starts at 34 minutes in:

Hats off to her, as she comes up with a few home truths and admits the errors by made by Tory governments.

There are two key promises:

1) Scrap the Carbon Tax

2) Scrap ROC subsidies

I have been arguing for these for years.

Together she says these will cut electricity bills by 20%, worth about £16 billion a year.

There is one part where she misleads about Reform policy though. She claims that Reform promise to lower bills by £1000 per family, even though average electricity bills are less!

Reform’s savings however are based on the overall cost to the public of high electricity prices, not just electricity bills themselves. Their costings are based on John Constable’s calculations, which show an overall cost of £25 billion a year.

Domestic users, of course, only use about a third of total electricity, so only a third of that £25 billion is added to household bills. But the public ultimately the whole of that £25 billion one way or another, whether through higher taxes, higher prices in shops, lower wages or lost jobs.

In reality, both the Tories and Reform are on the same page with this. It is a pity Coutinho resorted to this cheap shot.

Given the stance of the Conservative Environment Network, there may be battles ahead in the Tory party!

Below are some of the slides she presented.