20131017_TW
Source: BBC1: This Week
URL: N/A
Date: 17/08/2013
Event: This Week: Andrew Neil and guests on UK energy policy
Credit: BBC1
People:
- Diane Abbott: UK Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington
- Miranda Green: Forner adviser to Paddy Ashdown
- Andrew Neil: Journalist and broadcaster
- Michael Portillo: British journalist, former Conservative Party politician and Cabinet Minister
Andrew Neil: Energy... Energy prices. We saw Ed Davey there, the LibDem Energy Minister, visibly angry at the rise in British Gas prices - though why he should be so surprised is another matter. He may be visibly angry but I don't see this Coalition coming out with anything to match Labour's energy price freeze.
Miranda Green: It's a terrible political fix they're in, with this, because they keep trying to point out that Ed Miliband's wheeze won't work and that it's a con, but actually what they're got is that they're in charge of a market that's supposed to be competitive but that doesn't compete in any functional way in the interests of the consumer. So there are two things going on -
Diane Abbott: - markets virtually every week, just to make things worse for the Coalition, some energy company puts their money up. It was really funny - I went to conference and at the beginning of the conference everyone was a bit downbeat. You know, because we'd had a bad summer, and duh... And then - the energy price freeze, and then, of course, Ed Miliband's fight with the Mail actually has put us in a really good place. Extraordinary.
Andrew Neil: Well...
Miranda Green: Politics isn't the opinion polls, it seems.
Diane Abbott: It's put Ed Miliband in a good place...
Andrew Neil: I've seen this recent poll - Labour 10 ahead, neck and neck. At the moment, it may be a self-denying ordinance [?] that we should just ignore opinion polls for a couple of months.
Diane Abbott: But I think the energy price freeze is working, because although the macroeconomic numbers are better, ordinary people don't feel better off.
Andrew Neil: It's certainly working as a political gambit.
Michael Portillo: There's an expression "finem lauda" which means "let's wait and see how it all works out". I do think at the moment that the government's got itself in a fix and it's making a mistake, because if it looks angry with the energy companies every time they put up their prices, then that seems to put Ed Miliband in the right. You know, if you're angry with them, why don't you - [several people are talking at once.]
Andrew Neil: Yeah... There's something wrong with them.
Diane Abbott: So what should they do?
Michael Portillo: But the reason, the reason, I think that it will all come bad in the end for Ed Miliband -
Diane Abbott: Oh!
Michael Portillo: - is that the policy is, I'm afraid, I think is so ridiculous that if - that if the press get their act together, and every time they interview Miliband they say "Now, just tell us exactly how this thing is going to work. What are you going to do after 20 months? What are they allowed to do before? What are they allowed to do afterwards?" the policy will unravel in his hands.
Diane Abbott: So what should government do, Michael? You don't know.
Michael Portillo: I think they should wait for Ed Miliband to get his comeuppance, which I think he will get.
Andrew Neil: Well, here's something - there's something a bit hypocritical about politicians in all three political parties ganging up on the energy companies while they're in the process of agreeing to green levies, which are going to involve huge increases of the price of energy in the years to come. We're just on the brink of a green one with EDF and the Chinese, in which we will sign up to them getting twice the market rate for electricity than is current, and we'll all have to pay for it in our bills. And the offshore wind - they'll get three times - all of that is reflected in the bills.
Miranda Green: But there is a really, really important policy imperative behind this, though, which is energy security. And you have to ensure that in the future the country actually has access to all these different sources of energy. Because we don't know how things are going to develop, and we have to - we have to back each horse in the energy race, because we do not know which will be the winner.
Michael Portillo: The policy in the short term is a policy of energy insecurity. It is about closing plant very, very fast and opening plant very, very slowly. And that's why we're told that by the year 2015, which is only the year after next, we're going to have a 2% margin of electricity supply. By the way, I entirely agree with you. I think I read the other day that we are now each paying £180 a year on green policies -
Diane Abbott: Oh no it's not, it's not as much as that, it isn't -
Andrew Neil: It's over £112. It's going to rise - it will be closer to £250 by 2020, in today's prices.
Diane Abbott: But it currently isn't the larger portion of the price rises.
Andrew Neil: No, but it's about 10% of the bill. Now, that's a big chunk for families on average incomes, to have to - to have to take. And it's all set to rise. Every one of these levies gets higher.
Miranda Green: But some of these levies are also to do with subsidising the fuel bills of the very poor.
Andrew Neil: Yeah, but they have to be subsidised because the green bills are high in the first place.
Miranda Green: But, you know, you can have an argument about whether these charges should actually be put on people's bills or whether they should be funded through taxation.
Andrew Neil: Aha, exactly. Exactly.
Miranda Green: And that seems to be something that's rising.
Andrew Neil: And we, um, Michael, we don't like nationalised industries in our energy, unless they're French nationalised industries, or Chinese nationalised industries, bringing to us a technology which, 50 years ago, this country left - led - the world, peaceful generation of nuclear power.
Michael Portillo: We can only have led it, I think, for a year or two. Our nuclear industry was pretty disastrous for many years - we went to Magnox and then to Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors, these were reactors that I'm afraid were failures, and we now have to import a technology, which is Pressurised Water Reactors, which was actually developed in the United States. But yes -
Andrew Neil: No, no, these aren't PWRs that are coming in, they're different - the EDF technology is different. And they're building two reactors - one in Finland, one in France, they're both about eight years behind and two times over budget.
Michael Portillo: But anyway, your nostalgia for the British lead is pretty out of date, it must be - it must be 60 years ago, by now.
Miranda Green: All predictions that are made about the energy market turn out to be wrong. Let's face it, you know, we thought, 30 years ago, we'd be abandoning coal, we're not doing anything of the kind.
Andrew Neil: No, we are abandoning coal, we're closing every coal-fired power station in the country.
Miranda Green: Well, every -
Andrew Neil: All right -
Miranda Green: - every growing economy is relying on coal.
Andrew Neil: I'll have a little chat with you, afterwards. I've got a file on this.
Miranda Green: Okay.
Andrew Neil: Thanks, Miranda.