𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

British families and businesses are “paying the price for years of foolish policy,” former Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho has warned in a scathing attack on Ed Miliband’s drive to achieve net zero carbon emissions. Ms Coutinho claimed the country is “decades into a folly of our own making” and “things must change before it is too late”.

In a ferocious critique of the race to net zero, she said: “Since the mid-2000s, the British people have been promised something that seemed too good to be true: a swiftly delivered green energy sector built on solar and wind power that would create hundreds of thousands of jobs and reduce our carbon emissions and energy bills at the same time. All this was in aid of reaching Net Zero. The trouble is, it was too good to be true – certainly in the way that it was attempted by parties of all stripes, including my own.”

Warning that Britain no longer has an energy market that puts the customer first, she said: “[The] economics of prioritising intermittent, subsidised renewable energy over reliable power from domestically-extracted natural gas were fundamentally flawed. The British public know this, because their energy bills prove it.”

Aiming her fire at Secretary of State for Energy Secretary Mr Miliband – her opposite number in the House of Commons – she said: “[Since] taking office Ed Miliband has doubled down on a renewables-based system which involves building more and more capacity, much of which will sit idle for huge swathes of time. This means a higher cost, less productive energy system which delivers less value for billpayers.”

Ms Coutinho accused the state of “exerting ever more power in pursuit of climate targets which have done little to reduce global emissions but inflicted significant damage to British prosperity”.

She claimed that as Energy Secretary in the final year of the last Conservative Government she initiated a “reset”, saying she pushed “back bans and mandates that would have imposed huge costs on an unwilling public”.

Ms Coutinho made her comments in the foreword to a report from the Prosperity Institute which recommends abolishing the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Fred de Fossard, director of Strategy at the institute, said “access to cheap and abundant energy is one fundamental pillars of national prosperity” and without it “sustained economic growth is not possible”.

Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice attacked the Conservatives, saying: “The former Energy Secretary’s claim that she ‘reset’ net zero is laughable. Her Government created the very energy crisis she now complains about.

“Their green policies pushed up bills, damaged British industries like steel, and left us less secure. Reform UK will scrap net zero and fast-track licences for North Sea oil and gas to cut bills and restore growth. People must never forget nor forgive the damage forced on people by net stupid Zero.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “The only way to bring down energy bills and deliver energy security is by making Britain a clean energy superpower, which will get us onto clean, homegrown power that we control. The National Energy Systems Operator has made clear we could save £36billion annually in a scenario where we hit our 2050 goals compared to one in which we slow down.”