Extreme policy events: reviewing green taxes media coverage
The media are scrambling to make sense of the fallout following after Hurricane Green Taxes hit parliament yesterday. Following news that energy companies are raising prices yet again, the wishes of some sections of politics and the media may have come true: the government may now ” roll back” some ‘green’ charges on bills. Here’s our roundup of the media coverage.
U-turn
” Panicky” is the word on the lips of many. David Cameron has been known to apparently make up policy mid-debate – his vow to force energy companies to put customers on the lowest energy tariff last year is a topical example.
But yesterday’s example – during a fractious exchange with the leader of the opposition over rising energy prices – opened a new frontier. Not just one policy, but a whole raft of them, could be changed. So-called green levies on bills, which pay for renewables subsidies, energy efficiency and other schemes, have been under review for a fortnight – but nothing has yet been decided. Or at least not until yesterday.
For a prime minister, panicky is not a good look. The FT calls the statement a “gamble”, and contrasts yesterday with a speech in 2008 when Cameron said he would not be “diverted from his green agenda” despite the economic downturn.
Lib Dems
The Tories’ coalition partners sound like they’re up for a fight, too. One Lib Dem source told the media: “The Tories have put no properly worked-up policies in front of us. But we will not allow a panicky U-turn during PMQs to dictate government policy. The way to provide stable fuel bills . . . is not to make policy up on the hoof.”
Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg appeared on Radio 4’s Today Programme in a more emollient mood, however. While he said: “It wasn’t something I was expecting and it’s not something I fully agree with”, he suggested the parties will work together to find savings where possible.
What’s at stake
Some media outlets have taken a look at the levies themselves in an attempt to understand what will be cut and how much of a difference any rollback would make.
The FT notes that while much of the attention in the media has focused on subsidies to renewable energy, most money from ‘green’ levies goes toward energy efficiency and fuel poverty programmes – “green in means not ends”.
We also did some analysis, breaking down what the measures are and how much they add to bills.
On the basis of earlier statements by government ministers, it’s unlikely subsidies to renewables will get the chop. Instead, it appears the government’s energy efficiency programme, the Energy Company Obligation (ECO), is for the chop.
ECO is aimed at reaching fuel poor households and those in need of the most expensive efficiency measures. It’s also extremely unpopular with energy companies. This doesn’t mean efficiency measures will be cut altogether, however. According to The Times “senior government sources suggested that some [measures] would be paid for out of general taxation instead”. In his radio interview, Clegg suggested the same.
Given that power companies and official estimates disagree about how much green policies add to energy bills, working out the benefits of cutting them will be a challenge. Whatever the real figures, Lib Dems and others are at pains to point out that cutting green measures will only address a small portion of bills.
As BusinessGreen notes, energy secretary Ed Davey has “pointed out that ‘green levies’ make up around 10 per cent of the average bill, while the main driver behind recent increases in energy bills remains changes in the wholesale price of gas.”
Putting on the pressure
Commentators from all over agree the energy company announcements aren’t the only reason Cameron is in a flap.
In recent weeks, Labour leader Ed Miliband caught the Conservatives on the back foot with his proposal to freeze energy bills if his party is elected. And Miliband is keeping up the pressure now, calling on the PM to freeze energy prices now. Quoted in the Evening Standard, he said the announcement simply means “business as usual” for energy companies – who he says are the real force behind rising bills.
And the normally loyal former Tory prime minister John Major called for a different measure aimed directly at energy companies – a windfall tax on their excess profits. Politics.co.uk suggests Major’s intervention has further played into Labour’s hands. Telegraph sketchwriter Michael Deacon declared a decisive win for Major, saying Cameron “simply had no answer to [Major’s] forthright new ideas”.
Divisive
The Daily Mail plays up the differences between the parties, condemning Major’s speech and saluting Conservatives’ stand against green policies.
But as the BBC science editor David Shukman pointed out, cutting carbon was once a uniting issue for all parties. He said all parties signed off on the Climate Change Act, which ‘set the framework for deep cuts in greenhouse gases in the next few decades’.
Yesterday’s extreme political events show just how much times have changed – at least in terms of the tone of debate. But given that no green measures have yet been touched, it remains to be see what Cameron’s nod to the anti-green-measure lobby will mean in practice.