Why do Tories insist on trying to mislead us on every slightest blunder they make, when we can find the facts easily anyway?

Here’s Graham Stuart, Tory Energy Minister, blaming the last Labour government – which ended in 2010 – for his own government’s lack of exertion in bringing energy bills down with insulation and heat pumps, and investment in renewables:

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”.

And what are the facts?

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.

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.

I think it’s going a bit far to say that the Tories’ failure on this has kept energy bills high, though, when the globalised energy giants like Shell and BP are charging us whatever they like because they get most of their cash abroad.

I mean, who owns the wind farms, apart from the King?

Source: UK energy minister blames Labour for soaring energy bills | Energy bills | The Guardian

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