From April, the average household energy bill will sit at £1,641 a year – over £70 higher than at the election. The election where
Labour repeatedly promised to cut your bills by £300 was followed by five bill hikes instead. Despite Ed Miliband’s spin, there is no relief in sight for struggling families and businesses.
The slight reduction at this latest price cap is not because energy is cheaper, but because the taxpayer is now picking up much of the cost of wind farm subsidies - or the Renewable Obligation scheme - that used to sit entirely on your energy bill.
This is just a sleight of hand - because what Labour has taken off your energy bill, they have just moved straight onto your tax bill. You’ll still pay for it, just from a different pocket.
This taxpayer-funded bailout will cost a whopping £7billion. That’s cash that will go straight to multi-million-pound energy developers. It’s simply a wealth transfer from billpayers to energy companies.
And in a crushing disappointment to our high street, it doesn’t do a thing for struggling businesses. If you run a pub, a cafe, a small factory, or any business that keeps the economy ticking, you get nothing. After rising taxes and business rates, it’s yet another kick in the teeth.
That’s why the Conservatives would scrap those old rip-off wind subsidies and axe the Carbon Tax, which is pushing up bills.
Britain already generates some of the cleanest electricity in the world, but it’s also some of the most expensive.
The damage is real and tangible. Eye-watering energy bills are pushing our industrial jobs overseas and killing growth. And they hit ordinary families the hardest, because a bigger share of a lower income always goes on the basics.
Ed Miliband's energy bill boast is a sleight of hand. You'll pay from a different pocket - Claire Coutinho
|Getty Images
The Conservatives are the only party with a Cheap Power Plan to cut electricity bills by 20 per cent immediately.
First, we would axe the Carbon Tax on electricity generation. The UK Emissions Trading Scheme and Carbon Price Support together add roughly a third to the wholesale price of electricity.
It pushes up the price of gas, wind, solar and nuclear, making our electricity more expensive than it needs to be. Removing it would lower wholesale prices and cut bills across the board.
Second, we would scrap the Renewable Obligation subsidies, which pay some wind farms three times the market price for electricity.
Together that would cut electricity bills by 20 per cent, giving families and businesses some much-needed relief.
Cheap power underpins growth, industry, and household finances. Britain needs a stronger economy, and we must start by making electricity cheap.
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