𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Claire Coutinho has tipped her hand. Onward’s latest paper features a glowing foreword from the Conservatives’ energy spokesperson. If this is the framework for the party’s energy policy, it’s safe to say that the Tories are preparing to make the same mistakes they made in their 14 wasted years of Government all over again, with the same people making them.

To be fair, on a surface reading it’s a promising change of heart. There are promises to save money on the cost of energy generation. There are plans to row back on the target of Net Zero by 2050. And there is even a belated recognition that, before imposing that target, the Conservative party might have wanted to at least try looking at what it would cost.

In practice, it’s a recipe for disaster, and for business as usual. It doesn’t hold up to the slightest scrutiny.

The failures start at the top. The plan would keep all the absurdly wasteful ‘Contract for Difference’ subsidies established to date, putting British consumers on the hook for massive payments to generators of intermittent, unreliable renewable energy. They’d also keep Renewable Obligation payments out to 2033, loading years of costs onto the public.

It’s a similar story with the Emissions Trading Scheme. The Onward plan is to lift it for generators, but apparently keep it in place for the rest of the economy, loading punitive costs onto industry and making businesses unviable. And there isn’t nearly enough emphasis on ending the absurd waste of Carbon Capture and Storage, a risky technology the Government is planning to spend billions on. Support for new projects ends from 2030. What about the projects kicking off beforehand?

Wind will retain a large share of the mix, with no solid path to the assumed increase in gas generation. The plan, apparently, is that reduced carbon taxes will do almost all the work, alongside longer capacity market contracts. This is simply not enough in a world where demand for turbines is ramping up by the hour, and where chop and change policy under the Uniparty has done enormous harm to investment in Britain. Getting a new generation of gas power stations under way will require real, tangible state support to rapidly build out capacity and cut bills for British families. Anything less is a tacit acceptance of the status quo.

The problem is simple. There isn’t a solid and reliable plan to reduce the cost of energy, because the Conservatives are trying to have their cake and eat it. They want the kudos for dropping Net Zero, without the actual hard work of undoing their project.

It’s a symptom of the biggest problem of all with this report, and indeed every other attempt by Kemi Badenoch and her crew to pretend they had nothing to do with the disaster their party inflicted on Britain: even if the plan did work, the Conservatives would never implement it.

Remember: when she was in office, in charge of energy policy, Claire Coutinho was boasting that Britain had “set the toughest targets” on emissions, that “nothing will distract us from achieving net zero or driving forward renewables”. She was bragging that Ed Miliband, of all people, wasn’t radical enough, and boasting about our national status as a “poster child” for Net Zero.

And Coutinho was no outlier. Her leader, Kemi Badenoch, who by September 2024 was telling us Britain’s policy was to “subsidise China’s coal-powered economic development to sell us the steel that we used to make”, was just that January telling us “our steel industry is not disappearing; our steel industry is evolving”.

Are we really supposed to think that the Tories who imposed Net Zero, implemented Net Zero, boasted about Net Zero, underwent a sudden Damascene conversion? Reader, I don’t believe it for a minute. They’re the same people, the same Tories, and if given another chance they’ll do the same thing all over again.

There’s only one party with a serious plan to fix the energy system, save the taxpayer billions, and end the Net-Zero rip-off. There’s only one party that played no role in getting us into this mess. Britain needs change. Britain needs Reform.