Bishop Hill Green fairies
Dec 2, 2013 Climate: Parliament 
One sometimes wonders if members of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee inhabit a sort of a green fairytale land. It seems as if no policy measure is ever too silly to find its way into their recommendations or an opinion too cockeyed for them to adopt.
As an example, take their report on energy subsidies, published today, which boldly declares that fossil fuels are subsidised by some £12bn per annum in the UK.
Globally, subsidies for fossil fuels exceed $500 billion a year. They are inconsistent with the global effort to tackle climate change, providing incentives for greater use of such fuels and disincentives for energy efficiency. Energy subsidies in the UK are running at about £12bn a year; much directed at fossil fuels. There is no single internationally agreed definition of what constitutes energy subsidy, which has provided a way for the Government to reject—erroneously, in our view—the proposition in some areas that it provides energy subsidies.
The idea that the UK subsidises fossil fuels is so daft that even the noble and learned Baroness Worthington has rejected it. Interestingly, the evidence on which this declaration was made seems to have been commissioned by the committee from Oxford Energy Associates, a loose affiliation of green-minded academics. No doubt you need some policy-based evidence making to build such a green fairy tale world.
But of course, when looked at through green goggles, real subsidies - those for renewables - are a different kettle of fish, being 'an essential lever':
Subsidies for renewables are an essential lever to provide certainty to industry and drive investment in those technologies. The Government should rethink its hostility to a separate continued European target for the deployment of renewables.
And, like the Labour party, they seem quite clear that energy bills are not yet high enough:
The variation in definitions of subsidy allows the Government to resist acknowledging subsidy in many areas, particularly on nuclear energy and the lower rate of VAT on domestic and small business bills.
Reader Comments (75)
The thing is that no fossil fuel booster will ever admit that their preferred fuels have costs that are not paid directly by the user. Hence there really is a subsidy.
The level of delusion would be funny if it wasn't so bloody serious.
I see Matt Ridley has been telling like it is again over the Times..
http://www.thegwpf.org/matt-ridley-green-energy-kill-britains-economy/
When will this madness end? I have come to think that even if the Earth's temp started to fall now (and in some places including Central England it has) those "scientists" that have fed the scam will try to find another "it's hiding in the attic" statement and the loonies will still find it "essential" to carry on with the same policies.
After all the same madness and move to world government was proposed during the 1970's Ice Age predictions, and by some of the same scammers. Mind you when the next real Ice Age comes, even a world government might very well be very short of a useful response.
@Chandra
Such as?
Re: Chandra
You are way off topic. This is about a claim that lowered VAT that consumers pay is a subsidy. It isn't about any possible future impacts of using fossil fuels. If you want to discuss that then why not start a discussion here which is the proper place for it.
Chandra
"preferred fuels"
So what do you use?
Just because there is no single internationally agreed definition of what constitutes energy subsidy, that doesn't mean they should make them up as they go along.
Government revenues (and the currency) were buoyed up by North Sea oil and gas production during the hard times of the early eighties. That's how the government was able to support such high levels of unemployment. Oil supported the subsidies, not the other way round.
The last time I bought petrol, it was 'subsidised' to the tune of about -400%
@retireddave
From the same Matt Ridley article:
"Suppose, instead, world energy prices come down, even as the cost of subsidising renewables and nuclear starts to bite. We will have rising energy bills while the rest of the world has falling ones. That is a recipe for job destruction."
Suppose, that is the actual intent of our 'politicians'
I wish my home heating oil was subsidised. 2000litres costs me about £1200 including VAT. If my oil tank were subsidised like an onshore wind turbine, I could claim £6000 subsidy from the electricity consumers every time I fill the tank.
When has government policy had any effect on human development?
Is electricity the result of government policy? How about the light bulb? Railways? Motor cars? Computers? The internet? Even water supplies and sewerage were private ideas that governments latched on to.
Rule by government policy is an attempt at control by those who have not the wit to control. Any government that was to the right of Tony Benn’s barminess would have the sense to realise that it is industry that benefits the people, not government. No government in history that has had half the level of control that Cam-moron, Clogg-head or Milipede so desperately seek has been able to do anything other than drive their people into greater depths of poverty.
But then, perhaps that is what they want…
At the last election we were promised a hung parliament and I've been waiting for this ever since. Perhaps if they stopped subsidizing fuel and electricity with a 5% VAT rate and put it up to the standard 20% that might bring the hangings on?
Chunder (Dec 2, 2013 at 11:55 AM): you are aware that most of what you pay to “fossil fuel boosters” (whatever you mean by that) is taxes? You are aware that one of the biggest sources of income in this country is from fossil fuels? Being such an economic genius as you think you are, please explain how such a high payer of taxes is being subsidised.
Unless you think that a reduction in tax is a subsidy, of course…
Nah! No-one is that stupid!
Chandra - what you say has some truth to it - half truths usually have. The full cost of a lot of what we do as a society are not taken into consideration.
BUT - if you are going to apply that criteria to fossil fuel plants then -
I heard the other day that support vessels for the offshore turbines are burning 1million litres of diesel a month. (I have no proof of that statement and would be grateful if anyone has figures) but the comment came from someone who works on those boats.
We all know that the government is setting up diesel back up (STOR) for when the lights go out, at huge cost - that has to added to the cost of renewables, since with gas, for instance, it would not be needed.
We now know that much of the increase in infrastructure cost for the national grid (added to our bills) are not "essential" and would be needed for fossil fuel power stations as DECC have said, but are only needed to connect wind turbines to the grid. That cost should added to the costings for renewables, but once again lies and obfuscation are order of the day.
We know that plans for 25 year replacement of Turbines have been more like 15 years in the Danish sector - who have the most expensive electricity in the world.
We all know now that Bio-mass for Drax power station involves massive environmental destruction of forests in North Carolina (real environmentalists are rightly protesting there). The trees are then chipped using energy, transported by lorries, ships and trains all using masses of diesel and then the chips have to be moisturised to avoid spontaneous combustion in the store. It is then burnt releasing more than double the CO2 of gas. The trees are 100 years old and more. AND DECC counted this as carbon neutral when it was agreed to.
As they say "25 years ago Greens were chaining themselves to trees - and now they are burning them". You couldn't make it up.
Domestic energy was zero-rated, and then VAT was imposed at the minimum level permitted by the EU (was it when Ken Clarke was chancellor? - I can't remember). How can that be interpreted as 'subsidizing'?
In a Spectator article in July this year, Rupert Darwall noted that the government’s energy policy has ‘lost all contact with reason’. He quite reasonably puts a large part of the blame for this sorry state of affairs on the Met Office, e.g.
Source: http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8959941/whats-wrong-with-the-met-office/
The politicians will of course blame the advice they received from such sources as and when this disgraceful period of policy madness comes to an end. Political developments in Australia and Canada give us some hope that this may be sooner than one might otherwise have hoped for, and even in Germany, land of greenery in politics between the world wars and again in recent decades, there are encouraging signs of political change.
You might be interested to note that all this Climate crap we are having to put up with from the EU and our own Government is being done illegally when related to actual British Law.
See this post at Tallblokes Talkshop.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/11/30/constitutional-illegality-of-eu-treaties-affecting-the-sovereignty-of-britains-peoples/
http://www.energy.eu/#Prices
Check out fuel taxes. 65-70& of automotive fuel cost in Europe is tax. Quick google suggests Eu27 transport fuel use is about 350million tonnes per year, or about 2.8 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Or about $250 billion per year for the crude. Suggests fuel taxes around $500 billion, just for europe and just for transport.
VAT and other taxes on natural gas would no doubt add another few hundred billion, again just for Europe.
So how the hell do they come to this $500 billion subsidy conclusion? Get a media studies grad to do the calculation?
Taking money from one group and giving to another group to do something (support windmills) = SUBSIDY!
Allowing one group to keep more of their hard earned cash through lower taxation etc = NOT A SUBSIDY!
As the Bish says, the dramagreens live on their own planet and because of that they have to create excuses to support the religion of Mann Made Global Warming (tm).
Mailman
"Fossil fuel subsidy", they wheel that old canard out again.
World prices for coal by comparison with gas and the straitjackets of long term contracts in the EU - are relatively cheap - that's what is keeping UK energy bills comparatively, some might say reasonably low - but only in the interim.
The playing field is now so skewed, tilted towards over generous funding - aid to the renewable construction industry we have great difficulty getting a handle on any costings formulated at the DECC and in which the power companies are reluctantly complicit - that is the purposeful design.
But we do know, that, the only fuels keeping the UK lights on are coal and gas [and nuclear]. The Green madness, is about dissimulation and spreading lies about such myths as "fossil fuel subsidy" and is part of the great misdirection.
Hearts and minds are the target, never let the facts get in the way of green propaganda is the meme.
Re: retireddave
> We all know now that Bio-mass for Drax power station involves massive environmental destruction of forests in North Carolina
Smoke from burning wood contains cancer causing compounds such as benzopyrenes, dibenzanthracenes and dibenzocarbazoles and other toxic compounds such as aldehydes and phenols. These are in addition to what you would get from burning coal.
"There is no single internationally agreed definition of what constitutes energy subsidy"
One can only be thankful that the likes of Deben and Worthington haven't yet dreamed one up.
Does no-one else remember the vicious attacks on the Conservative government from Labour and the rest of the left when they imposed an 8% VAT on gas supplies? Having of course just reduced prices by 23% against vehement Labour opposition simply by privatising of British Gas.
So those same people (for it is pretty well-established that the climate cabals political support is from the left) who were so set against 8% VAT are now campaigning for 20% VAT as well as extra costs.
"The noble and learned Baroness Worthington..." I wasn't aware that her Eng Lit degree made her a 'learned', m'lud. Like, she's not a barrister, is she?
John Shade - Thanks for reminding us about that I must read it all again and his book.
I did comment yesterday somewhere in one of the threads, or unthreaded, that I wondered whether some climate scientist may eventually go to prison. Politicians will seek to blame others that is for sure. I guess those that are just deluded and can claim that "my prof told me it was all true", might get away with it. BUT those who have either bent data or displayed negligence should remember that the Italian earthquake guys and a few other scientists that bent their data in other fields are in the slammer.
TerryS
Thanks for that info - I will use it in presentations. Thank goodness for cut and paste or I wouldn't be able to spell the compounds!!
Snotrocket
No very true - but it usually means that her punctuation and spelling is OK - unlike mine.
retireddave: re your punctuation etc. I read your earlier post (v good) but I figure your did a Bernard Levin and left a 'not' out of a key sentence about transmission lines 'not' being need for existing fossil-fuelled stations. :-)
Perhaps they are making the country unlivable in the hope that all the immigrants will leave. Cunning.
Chandra
Are you saying that because fuel producers pay less VAT there is in effect a fossil fuel subsidy?
If so I see what you mean but you might want to get onto McVities about their "biscuit subsidy".
Some things should be classified as staples or essentials. Fuel is one and hence it's surprising that there is any VAT at all on it. Never mind the more than 100% duty.
If relations with Iran improve and oil hits $50 a barrel as some predict there's going to be some fun times with the government.
For those interested, fossil fuel companies pay all the normal taxes other companies pay plus the following:
Petroleum Revenue Tax (PRT) - rate of 50%. This is applied per field so if you have 2 oil fields and one makes a profit and the other a loss you can not aggregate the 2 to reduce your tax bill. This only applies to fields given consent before 1993.
Ring Fence Corporation Tax (RFCT) - Prevents profits from oil and gas being reduced by other activities. This means any interest payments from loans to develop the oil and gas can not be offset against profit.
Supplementary Charge (SC) - Additional tax on top of the RFCT. Set at 10% in 2002, increased to 20% in 2006 and 32% in 2011.
The so called "subsidy" to shale gas is to reduce the Supplementary Charge for a portion of their income and to allow them to offset some of their expenditure against the profits.
Re: Mickey H Corbett
> Are you saying that because fuel producers pay less VAT there is in effect a fossil fuel subsidy?
No, he is saying that because fuel consumers (i.e. you and me) pay less VAT there is in effect a fossil fuel subsidy.
It's the usual story - look at who provided evidence.
Renewable energy association.
Friends of the Earth.
Vesta WInd Systems...
While the committee itself includes Zac Goldsmith and Caroline Lucas.
Clearly, they've been at the 'Absinthe'...
How taking away in tax say 30%, as against 40%, of a entity's income, amounts to a subsidy, is only comprehensible to the socialist mind, which thinks it all anyway belongs to the "people".
These interlocking idiocies only frazzle the brains of those who practice rational thought; to the majority of Greens, who regard rational thought as a hate crime, the inconsistencies go unnoticed.
The greens have redefined the concept of "subsidy" to include things like writing off expenses, advertising, depreciation, and operating costs- if it is 'fossil fuel' related.
That media is too lazy and/or corrupt to challenge the green scammers on this blatant deceit is no longer surprising.
That the greenies then in the same paper talk about the real operating subsidies that their garbage technologies and scams require to even get built as a good thing is not surprising either. They have to confuse the issue by lying about real industry and making their blatantly false claims about 'fossil fuels' so they can secure their real goal: continued unfettered access to the tax payers money and government support. The green goal is not have a real conversation about energy and environment. The goal is to keep the money flowing into their parasitic schemes.
Snotrocket - Oh bugger!!
Thanks for pointing that out.
Even at my advanced years the brain runs ahead of my fingers and then when I read it before "creating" I often read what I thought I had typed. I guess only further senility will cure it, but then I will probably be saying Bishop Who? by then.
here's where they got their musterd ...
https://www.iea.org/publications/worldenergyoutlook/resources/energysubsidies/
"No, he is saying that because fuel consumers (i.e. you and me) pay less VAT there is in effect a fossil fuel subsidy." Dec 2, 2013 at 1:48 PM TerryS
And there's the thing, Terry. As ALL household gas and electric we use, no matter its source is rated at an EU-set minimum VAT rate of 5% there is no advantage in what DECC might see as the 15% subsidy: all boats rise on the same tide. So as one of the definitions of a subsidy, afaik, is something that gives an advantage to one product over another, the fact that they all 'receive' the same 'subsidy' there is no such thing. Also, if the government take money from my taxes and give it to you to help you produce widgets, that's a subsidy; but if they let me keep my money to save me over-paying for some other widget, that's not.
But having now read that Goldsmith and Lucas were on the committee that came up with this, I can't say I'm surprised.
Chandra?
+ + + crickets + + +
We do not need any comment from lady Chandra.
TerryS
I think I looked at it from the business end. As in a company does not have to pay HMRC 20% VAT so can claim more profit. Though more profit is a relative thing as they still have to pay 5% on something that should be an essential.
As an aside if you were able to supply energy to the grid but make less than around 70000 a year doing it you would pay no VAT. Maybe start a STOR business with a fat subsidy but keep running profit below 70000. Now there's a win win.
'Fossil fuel subsidies'and 'bedroom tax' are both dishonest labels invented by the left in order to misdirect the public and the media in order to promote their agenda. And by golly what an effective device!
priceofoil.org (price of tin foil dot org) has this to say on the topic:
"What is a fossil fuel subsidy?
A fossil fuel subsidy is any government action that lowers the cost of fossil fuel energy production, raises the price received by energy producers or lowers the price paid by energy consumers. There are a lot of activities under this simple definition—tax breaks and giveaways, but also loans at favorable rates, price controls, purchase requirements and a whole lot of other things"
Dec 2, 2013 at 12:28 PM | retireddave
The Beauly-Denny transmission line is only being constructed because of windy-gigs situated as far from the users as it's possible to be.. Without them there'd be no need for it. That is currently costed at £600 million, which broken down over 24.3 million electricity users comes out at £25 per household. How can it be justified?
Why I Love Beauly Denny
Where are the fuel subsidies? Mostlyin oil producing countries with dictatorships.
"Premium gasoline in Venezuela costs 5.8 U.S. cents a gallon"
I think the citizens of those countries should be notified that Greenpeace and Chandra and Friend of the Earth want Venezuelans to pay full price for gasoline. It would cut down on the trolling.
Micky H
It is only households who pay VAT at 5%, all commercial organizations pay the full rate.
Re: Micky H Corbett
> I think I looked at it from the business end. As in a company does not have to pay HMRC 20% VAT so can claim more profit.
Businesses claim back all the VAT they pay out so whether the VAT is 5% or 20% a business will still claim it all back and in effect not pay any. VAT is purely a consumer tax.
> As an aside if you were able to supply energy to the grid but make less than around 70000 a year doing it you would pay no VAT.
You have that the wrong way around. If you are not VAT registered then you can not claim back the VAT you get charged on everything from electricity to paper. So, as a business, you would pay VAT if your taxable turnover was less than £79k but you would not charge your customers any VAT. If your turnover is more than £79k then you claim back all the VAT you pay and you also charge your customers VAT.
Being as how, aside from the odd troll, we of this parish are all highly intelligent critical thinkers, it is easy for us to recognise this "fossil fuel" malarkey for what it is. Which is to say, complete horseshit.
The problem facing us, however, is this. It is a Big Lie, mouthed by respectable-sounding people. It is a Big Lie given oxygen and repeated, without criticism, by (once) respectable institutions like dear old Aunty. It is a Big Lie that is being repeated over and over again. It does not need to be true to work. It will acquire, IS acquiring, its own truthiness.
The originator of the Big Lie, who shall remain nameless out of respect to Godwin, also said; "Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing". We know that this Big Lie is not intellectually pleasing. But that doesn't matter. If it is popular, if it is inserted into the everyday thinking of the masses, like evil bankers and greedy energy companies, it will work, and there is sod all that we, who know the truth, can do about it.
The Hard Greens, the extremists, have achieved control over this country's energy policy. They have done this despite representing a vanishingly small minority of UK public opinion. They have done this by following Alinskyite tactics to the letter - making a noise, making a stink, appearing to be much bigger than they really are. They are a Great Dane's docked tail wagging its master.
We can sit here with our thumbs up our a****s, complaining about the iniquity of concepts like "fossil fuel subsidies", until the cows come home. But unless and until we become more like our opponents - making a NOISE and a STINK, the Big Lie will win through every time.
I know there are lots of nice people on this board who don't want to stoop to that level. Who want to be reasonable and discuss things. That's all well and good. But the ones who will win concessions from you and, ultimately, win the argument, are the ones who are willing to storm Russian oil platforms.
Sorry for the pessimism.
@AnguspPangus- well said- we need to stop being nice.
I'm very happy to do this- in fact I have been told off by Bish for not being nice to some of the green trolls who appear from time to time on this blog.
I have not being nice to Troffa Tim as per this email sent directly to him 4 days ago.
"Dear Mr Yeo.
As one who complained to the Police about your many corrupt dealings, I applaud your Constituency Party in their decision to deselect you.
Maybe this action will finally pull your face out of the (green) energy trough.
Unfortunately you still remain an MP, despite having been recorded telling a lobbyist that you had coached a parliamentary witness.
How you managed to persuade the HoC Commissioner, to give you benefit of the doubt, defies rational belief.
If you had a thread of decency you would resign your position now.
Of course that would be expecting too much from a corrupt, egotistical serial philanderer.
Regards,
Dr. D. Keiller
I have not been nice to Lord Oxburgh- you will have to wait until December 8th to read about this in the press.
I have not been nice to Phil Jones and the rest of his data-concealing cabal at UEA. (http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/1/23/a-major-foi-victory.html) and follow up stories.
I have not been nice to the BBC etc etc.
If we could all stop wringing our hands and start taking the fight to these green crooks then I'm sure we would make an impact.
TerryS
To be clear here, I do run my own company and yes if I wasn't VAT registered I can't claim back VAT. But the gist of what I was getting at was that a company that supplies fuel in the first place, that kind of business, pays less VAT. Not another type of business that pays for fuel as a customer.
According to HMRC under VAT/Fuel and Power there are quite a few instances of reduced VAT. So that's what I meant by looking at it from the business point of view. Sorry for the confusion. It amounts to the same thing anyway - you get more money from customers, but still are having to pay VAT on what should be an essential item like food.