The energy minister has refused to apologise for soaring household bills, blaming instead the “dire situation” inherited from the Labour government.
On Monday, it was announced that the average consumer energy bill would rise from £2,100 a year to about £3,000 after the government stops giving grants. The price hike is due to the increasing cost of gas.
At the Conservative Environment Network (CEN) net zero conference in Westminster on Monday, Graham Stuart refused to apologise to the British public for rising bills.
When asked by the Guardian if he would take responsibility on behalf of the government for sluggishness on insulation, heat pump installations and renewables investment, he refused and instead criticised the previous Labour government, which was last in office in 2010.
He said the Conservative action on energy efficiency “has been transformational since the rather dire position we inherited both on renewables and efficiency from Labour”.
When it was pointed out that Conservative MPs were among those who had criticised the government’s lack of action, he said: “That’s exactly why it’s so good to have CEN members of parliament, because they push the government to go further.”
The shadow climate minister, Kerry McCarthy, said: “Graham Stuart is living in a fantasy world. It was the Conservatives who crashed the market for onshore wind, costing British families £150 in higher bills. It was the Conservatives who gutted energy efficiency programmes, to the extent that installation rates are 20 times lower than under the last Conservative government. And it was Conservatives whose own net zero strategy is so poor that the UK’s own courts deemed it unlawful.
“The Tories’ failure on this agenda has undermined Britain’s energy security and kept energy bills high.”
The Guardian this week revealed that a third of the funding pledged by the UK government for insulation and installing heat pumps has not yet been spent, analysis has shown, despite the continuing energy bills and cost of living crises.
About £2.1bn remains unspent of the £6.6bn that was supposed to be used between 2020 and 2025 on making buildings more energy efficient and decarbonising heat. The funding is part of the £9.2bn that was promised for such spending in the Conservative general election manifesto of 2019.
