Dan Wootton: Boris, there's an energy crisis at home and it needs immediate action

Before this week, I wouldn’t be surprised if you had no idea that your energy bill is made up of around 23 per cent of green levies – an unwelcome stealth tax.

This week’s worrying electricity crisis has been prompted by wholesale prices for gas surging 250 per cent since January and going up 70 per cent since August.

Millions of households across Great Britain are already facing a 12 per cent hike to their bills from October when the government’s higher price cap comes into force.

Concerningly, by April some households could be paying twice as much as they do now. There is one obvious solution that Boris Johnson could enact to get Brits through this energy price hike drama: SCRAP THE GREEN TAX! Yesterday, a Downing Street spokesman ruled out a move to remove the levy, saying it is ‘an important part of driving our energy supply to renewables’.

But that’s not good enough for many Tory MPs who are well aware of just how badly these dizzying price rises will hit their constituents’ pocketbooks – not to mention the already looming and unexpected increase in National Insurance.

As Craig Mackinlay, who heads the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of Tory MPs, told the MailOnline…

“We cannot have these ridiculous prices being passed on to consumers, because we then will have energy poverty this winter. It is very obvious, we have to get rid of green levies temporarily or permanently.”

That would be a short-term solution at least. But in the medium-term more must be done as a matter of urgency to boost our domestic gas supplies. We cannot be this reliant on international bad actors like Russia any more.

Long-term, it’s fine for Boris – wooing the world in New York – to try and focus on clean and green energy – but there’s a crisis at home and immediate action is required. Perhaps it was Michael Deacon in the Daily Telegraph who summed up the absurdity of the situation best today, writing…

“Sometimes the news can be confusing. Right now, Boris Johnson is in America, telling everyone they’re producing too much carbon dioxide. While back here, his ministers are telling us we aren’t producing enough.”