Michael Meacher MP

There are already 5 million households in the UK in fuel poverty, i.e. they are forced to spend more than 10% of their income on soaring electricity and gas bills.   Yet the Government is now proposing to put a levy on power bills which will increase them by more than half again in order to bribe EDF, the French power company, to build a fleet of nuclear reactors.   Government energy policy is now reliant on three pillars – nuclear, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and renewables, all at risk of failure.   No CCS plant is operational anywhere in the world, and both the functional capability and cost implications of this technology are unknown.   Renewable sources of energy are being developed so slowly that they are certain to miss the mandatory EU targets for 2020 by a wide margin.   And given the consequential reliance on nuclear, EDF is now blackmailing Britain into paying it a colossal subsidy which the government swore blind they would never agree to. (more…)