Ed Miliband opens his mouth and full fat nonsense comes out – whopper | Personal Finance | Finance
Ed Miliband has insisted new drilling in the North Sea will not cut energy bills in a desperate bid to defend his mad ban on new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea. Anyone who says otherwise is “100% wrong.” He claims that no matter how much drilling we do, it will not reduce the bills even a penny because the prices are determined in the international market. So is he right?
Technically this is debatable. Oil is priced worldwide. UK gas prices are also affected by international markets, especially because we import so much. So no, pressing a button and drilling tomorrow won’t magically interrupt your dual-fuel direct debit. The problem is that it answers the wrong question. Deliberately.
The argument for North Sea production was never just about lowering the Ofgem price cap. It is about security, tax revenue, employment and growth. It’s about whether Britain earns from its own natural resources or writes endless checks to Qatar and the USA. And Miliband’s stance on this is 100% ridiculous.
North Sea investments are collapsing. Industry body Offshore Energies UK has warned that stricter licensing and windfall taxes are cutting spending and putting tens of thousands of jobs at risk. Oil and gas extraction was already in decline over the last decade. The industry once supported more than 400,000 jobs. It is now below 100,000 and falling rapidly. This is not 100% good.
The windfall increased the tax rate on North Sea profits to 78%. No wonder the UK explorers gave up and the Treasury lost out. Still not good.
Still, they are not giving up on energy-rich Norway. These sensitive Scandinavians are merrily drilling and reaping the rewards. I write this in the clean, smart and civilized Oslo airport, waiting for a plane that will blow old Stansted into shambles. Norway makes Britain feel like a third world country. Oil and gas did that.
Denmark also got the message. It has reversed plans to close more than 20 offshore fields by the early 2040s. The Danes are confused. Miliband with the fairies.
With energy bills so high in Britain and industry collapsing or fleeing abroad, the Grangemouth refinery is shutting down its refining operations. Steel manufacturers such as Tata Steel laid off thousands of workers. The Vauxhall van factory in Luton has closed. British Steel’s Scunthorpe blast furnace is in danger. Automobile production fell 16% last year to its lowest level since the early 1950s. There is no end to the polling.
Miliband says clean energy is the only path to energy security. But it costs a fortune. The government has approved £90bn of transmission network upgrades and £22bn of upgrades to distribution networks by 2031. Ultimately, you will pay for this with higher taxes. Revenues from North Sea drilling can make up for this and reduce your bills. Miliband doesn’t mention this.
Even if drilling does not directly reduce the unit price of gas, domestic production means tax revenues stay here. North Sea oil and gas have generated hundreds of billions of dollars over decades. Future fields may do the same. This money can fund public services or offset other taxes. Instead, we pay a fortune to import more energy, exporting our emissions and jobs.
Local production will also reduce our dependence on variable suppliers and support skilled engineering jobs. Miliband promised us 600,000 “green jobs”. Where are they? He says drilling won’t reduce bills by a penny. But it would also bring in some much-needed jobs and tax revenue.
Britain needs growth, income and security. Ed Miliband’s accelerated net zero charge does away with this. And there is a 100% chance that it will leave us hundreds of billions of pounds poorer as a result. He also talks about energy bills for pigs. That’s what he does.
