FUEL ENERGY – GREEN AGENDA
Understandable angst and concern about the massive hikes in fuel prices shouldn’t obscure the need to continue to take green measures.
It is quite compatible to ensure that the tax on fuel is postponed for example, and some of the VAT is abated, whilst still concentrating on green efforts, for example, encourage homes to insulate and to adopt small scale devices like small turbines on houses or indeed solar panels (an area that has been much neglected in this country as compared to say Germany). I think there is a great danger in people seeing there being one or other camp and I don’t think that is the case at all. I think it is quite feasible, indeed desirable, to do something on the price of fuel but at the same time press ahead with a green agenda.
The Chancellor will have a £600m fuel windfall from extra VAT from domestic fuel alone, quite apart from the VAT windfall on petrol and diesel.
It is quite possible to abate some of this tax but at the same time to press ahead with green energy measures. Indeed there are huge economic, social and environmental gains to be achieved by doing just this. The government response of simply seeking to produce more North Sea oil is really a woefully inadequate response.
