That Patrick Harvie wasn’t a fan of Boris Johnson’s energy security strategy even before it was published would ordinarily be enough to commend it to most people. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
The good news was the vindication of my hope, expressed last week, that the decision to extend the licence for the Cambo oil field would herald a more sensible approach to fossil fuels. The strategy has a commitment to North Sea oil and gas.
Cambo, along with the nearby Rosebank field, received another boost last week after its owner, Siccar Point, was taken over by established North Sea operator Ithaca Energy. Ithaca’s chief executive, Alan Bruce, said developing both fields would create thousands of direct and indirect jobs in Scotland.
We will need those jobs, because SNP Scotland remains a no-go area for the energy strategy’s main announcement — the expansion of nuclear power. This is even though Scotland relies on nuclear more than any other UK nation.
To be honest, Johnson’s desire to build what amounts to half a dozen more Hinkley Point Cs is in danger of looking a lot like his plans to build a bridge to Northern Ireland. Hinkley is years behind schedule and, at a current cost of more than £20 billion, is 50 per cent over budget. Meanwhile, the delayed Sizewell C plant is still hawking around for investors that aren’t from China.
Against that backdrop, it’s ridiculous that there is no clear blueprint for how the nuclear rollout outlined in the strategy will be financed and brought to completion. That said, last week the Nuclear Energy (Financing) bill, which aims to cut the cost of investing in new plants for pension funds and other institutional investors, received royal assent. It puts some flesh on the bones of Johnson’s nuclear ambitions, but I suspect the government will still have to take substantial stakes in future plants — as it has now done at Sizewell — if it is to inspire confidence and entice investors.
Harvie and others will justifiably argue that the strategy’s failure to outline plans to improve energy efficiency was a scandalous omission. Realistic government-backed measures to encourage home insulation would go a lot further towards lowering energy bills in the near future than lofty targets for wind, solar and nuclear.
The dead hand of chancellor Rishi Sunak is being blamed for the omission. Well, he’s getting blamed for everything these days. Either way, the bottom line is that this is less a strategy than a wish list.
The Sunaks at No 11
April has indeed turned out to be the cruellest month for Sunak as he surveys the wasteland of his ambition to replace Johnson. Mind you, thanks to Sunak, the time of stirring dull roots is proving fairly brutish for the rest of us, too.
The chancellor might have helped himself had he not displayed a tin ear to pleas to scrap his 1.25 percentage-point hike on national insurance contributions (NICs), which hit pay packets last week.
It’s not a good look to be picking the pockets of millions of already hard- pressed taxpayers while your nearest and dearest chooses to avoid that fate.
Had Rishi’s other half paid UK tax on the £11.6 million in dividends her stake in Infosys paid her last year, it would have been at a rate of 38.1 per cent (as a higher- rate taxpayer), costing her about £4.5 million. Oddly enough, her husband has since hiked that to 39.3 per cent.
So, it was kind of Mrs S to announce she will henceforth pay tax to her husband like the rest of us — because, as she put it, “many do not feel it is compatible with my husband’s role as chancellor” to avoid tax. Or more accurately, “I’m doing this because I’ve been found out”.
The Sunaks have still refused to say which country the dividends were being paid in. It’s worth pointing out that a number of countries don’t charge tax on dividend payments.
It’s also worth noting that Mrs S was a director and investor in fitness chain Digme, which collapsed last month leaving the taxpayer with debts of £415,000, including unpaid NICs. The business received up to £635,000 in furlough payments. Out-of-pocket creditors are not expected to recover any money from the administration, but many are now paying increased NICs.
Her tax arrangement didn’t just reinforce that it is one rule for them and another for everyone else. It implied there are no rules for them at all.
To assume the chancellor didn’t benefit from these arrangements is ridiculous. But either way, you can’t be responsible for setting and imposing taxation when your family is busy finding ways to avoid paying it.
There’s a simple solution to spare the Sunaks at No 11 any future blushes, and that is for the chancellor to close the three-century-old non-domiciled tax loophole that allowed his family to slash their tax bill. Or is it a case of turkeys not voting for Christmas?
Getting too hot, Nicola?
A week ago, the first minister quoted Harry Truman and preached that “the buck stops with me”, while in the same breath passing it to Derek Mackay. Following her decision to avoid more awkward questions by banning newspapers from the launch of her local elections campaign, another Truman quote came to mind: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
