We need Chancellor Rishi Sunak to say the ‘c’ word
Why isn't he talking about the climate?
Once is a mistake – twice is a decision.
Last October, Chancellor Rishi Sunak stood up in the House of Commons and delivered a Budget, just days before the COP26 summit in Glasgow, which failed to mention the word ‘climate’ once.
I’m not even surprised that he neglected to say the ‘c’ word yet again throughout his entire Spring Statement yesterday, leaving a giant climate-shaped hole at the heart of it.
We are currently facing the triple threat of a climate, energy and cost of living crisis – with the very real prospect of mass fuel poverty.
One mother on a radio phone-in yesterday evening said her home was so cold she could see her own breath. We need a Chancellor with compassion for people’s plight, and the ambition to tackle it – both of which Rishi Sunak utterly lacked yesterday.
So here are the policies that I believe he should have adopted, delivering the win-win potential of climate action, which helps the very worst off in our society, and helping us reclaim our future before the Chancellor squanders it.
The cost of living crisis means that the poorest need help with their bills right now, not two years down the line.
An unprecedented increase in global gas prices means that fuel bills could hit £3,000 by April, which could see over 8million households in fuel poverty.
We need effective, highly targeted measures, not a 5p cut to fuel duty that will do nothing for almost half of those on the lowest incomes who have no car in the first place.
One measure would have been to uprate benefits to 8% to keep in line with inflation.
By restricting it to a mere 3.1%, which was last October’s inflation rate, Sunak has directly made 9million of the poorest people around £500 worse off.
From the man believed to be the wealthiest MP in the House of Commons, this is unforgivable.
People’s household bills will only continue to spiral if we don’t secure a stable energy supply, and fast.
However, opening new North Sea oil and gas fields, or as Boris Johnson blurted in Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, abandoning ‘the phobia of our own hydrocarbons’ is most definitely not the answer.
To start with, they certainly won’t cut your bills – we are exposed to the wholesale gas price, and UK gas is sold on global markets, so it won’t make any material difference to prices here.
And producing new oil and gas in the UK won’t increase supply in the short-term either – it takes an average of 28 years to go from discovering a new field, to actually producing it for consumers. So it’s clear that we must keep fossil fuels in the ground.
For all the talk of increasing energy supply, there’s been little mention of reducing demand.
Sunak’s VAT cut on energy-saving materials is of course welcome, but it’s a measure that alone completely fails to meet the scale of the challenge we face.
Our homes are some of the leakiest in Europe.
What we needed from the Chancellor today was a retrofit revolution to deliver warm homes, lower bills and thousands of green jobs.
Take simple, straightforward insulation – one study has shown that upgrading a home from Band D to Band C can cut gas demand by 20% per home, and save almost £200 per household in just one year.
But instead of revolution, this statement delivered little more than disappointment.
This was a matter of political choices for the Chancellor – while pushing those on the lowest incomes into ever deeper poverty, he completely bypassed the opportunity to tax fossil fuel giants on their obscene profits.
Britain has one of the most generous tax regimes in the world for oil and gas production – just under £10billion in tax reliefs between 2016 and 2020.
Yet the UK received less than $2 per barrel of oil in tax in 2019, in comparison to nearly $22 per barrel in oil-rich Norway.
Fossil fuel giants have described themselves as ’cash machines’ as recently as November, but ever since, ordinary households have been footing astronomical bills while the likes of BP reap record profits, and its CEO is awarded a £4.5million salary.
A windfall tax on fossil fuel companies, which Greenpeace estimates could bring in as much as £4billion.
Instead, we go without.
As the world burns from global heating as fast as energy bills burn through our pockets, taxpayers should no longer be forking out to prop up the fossil fuel industry.
Currently, the UK is required to ‘maximise the economic recovery’ of oil and gas – and now the Prime Minster reportedly wants a further exemption from climate rules on the basis of ‘national security’.
But the climate crisis itself is a matter of national security – and global security at that. As much as he may wish to separate out the issues, they are inherently intertwined.
I’m hoping beyond hope that come the Rishi Sunak’s next Budget in the Autumn, he won’t turn an unwise decision to wilfully ignore the climate into a bad habit.
Please, Chancellor – dare to say the ‘c’ word, and start adopting policies for the good of our people and planet.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
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