The coalition does not agree with UKIP on everything

We have been told before that there is no real difference between the Coalition Government's stance on certain issue and that of UKIP. Apparently, this does not apply to all issues. For example the Coalition Government has different views from UKIP (and just about everybody else who has been following developments in the man-made global warming hoax) on Energy Renewables.

Lord James of Blackheath had a Starred Question on Monday:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to assess the assurances given by the previous Administration on the completion date and costs of the renewable energy programme required to meet the European Union target of a 20 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020.

The target is unattainable and one must pity any government that is stuck with it. Or one would pity it if one did not know that they would sign up to the same agreements.

My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord is referring to the European Union's obligation under the renewable energy directive to source 20 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, of which the UK share is to achieve 15 per cent renewable energy consumption by 2020. We are committed to meeting the UK's target for renewable energy by 2020, but we want to go further and have asked the Committee on Climate Change to provide independent advice on the level of ambition for renewables across the UK.

As part of the package of challenging energy and climate change measures, the UK has also signed up to the target of a reduction in new EU greenhouse emissions of at least 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. Actual costs will depend on how the market responds to incentives, on barriers to deployment and on how technology costs evolve between now and 2020. We will continue to monitor and review the uptake of financial incentives and costs.

Admittedly, that reply does not exactly tell one what the government is going to do apart from consulting and asking for reports (which will not be all that healthy for the deficit) but the tone of the response does not suggest that anybody has actually thought at all seriously about the subject.

Interestingly, the noble Minister, Lord Marland, a Conservative Party apparatchik, as well as a businessman and what used to be known as a sportsman seems to have annoyed the House with the long-windedness of his replies. He must try harder. Nevertheless, he did manage to come out with an extraordinary number. According to the agreement, as mentioned above, this country is supposed to source 20 per cent of its energy from renewables (which does not include nuclear) by 2020.

The most recent statistics for 2009 show that the level of renewable energy consumed in the UK has reached 3 per cent. This puts us on a trajectory to meet our first interim target under the renewable energy directive, which is 4 per cent by 2012.

That 20 per cent may turn out to be rather hard to achieve at this rate.

Lord Pearson asked:

My Lords, are the Government wise to have committed £18 billion per annum for the next 40 years to combat climate change when the science underpinning it has collapsed? How many British people will suffer fuel poverty as a result of this discredited initiative?

Unfortunately, it would appear that the government is now not in agreement with UKIP and there is more than a cigarette paper difference between them. Then again, it is not prepared to answer questions on the subject of money, fuel poverty or the dubiousness of the climate change science.

I am not sure I thank the noble Lord for his question, but his party's views are well known and, I am afraid, do not coincide with ours. We think that climate change is one of the biggest issues to confront the nation. We are putting green awareness on the front of our agenda. We are going to be the greenest Government who have existed and we intend to deliver policies to show so.

They will do such things, what they are they know not, but they shall be the greening of the earth.

Lord Marland also refused to answer a question about nuclear generated electricity as it is, in his opinion, irrelevant to the question and was a little muddled in his response to Lord Lawson of Blaby, whose question was:

Is my noble friend aware that only a couple of days ago, Mr Bob Wigley, the chairman of the previous Government's Green Investment Bank Commission, stated that meeting the requirements of the absurd Climate Change Act will cost the United Kingdom £50 billion a year, every year, for the next 40 years. How-above all in this age of austerity-can this possibly be justified?

In his reply Lord Marland was short on definite investment figures and long on vague promises about those green jobs.

I am very grateful to noble Lords for fighting over a question for me; it is quite rare in this job. However, I must correct my noble friend; the Green Investment Bank was an initiative set up by our own party and one must not rule out the phenomenal business opportunities that it offers for this country. We must have 2 million heat pumps by 2020. We must have bioenergy, which will create 100,000 jobs at a value of £116 million. Wind alone should create 130,000 jobs at a value of £36 billion. At a time when the country needs investment, these are heartening numbers.

Since they are purely imaginary numbers they cannot really be called heartening.

Two more written questions

Lord Pearson has put down two more written questions [scroll down] to follow up certain inconsistencies in the information given out by the government.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch to ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the mean annual per-capita cost to the Exchequer, in total and broken down by salary, pension provision, expenses, staff salaries, staff pension provision and staff expenses, of each member of (a) the House of Commons, (b) the House of Lords, (c) the European Parliament, (d) the Scottish Parliament, (e) the National Assembly for Wales, (f) the Northern Ireland Assembly, and (g) the Greater London Authority.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch to ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Henley on 29 June (WA 264), which other European Union countries support their proposed reform of the Common Fisheries Policy; which are opposed to it; and what system of voting would apply to proposals for reform.

The answers to both should be instructive.

Some figures

There was a reply from the Government on June 28 to Lord Pearson's question about the allocation of resources.

To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the United Kingdom's gross financial contribution in sterling in 2009 to (a) the European Union, (b) the Commonwealth, (c) the World Trade Organisation, (d) the United Nations, (e) the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, (f) the International Monetary Fund, and (g) the World Bank.

The response is long with figures given from the different departments that deal with the different organizations. Readers will probably want to read them all for themselves. However, it is sufficient for the moment to point out that

The Government's latest estimate of the UK's gross contribution to the European Union, after taking account of the UK abatement, was published in Table 3, page 62, of the 2009 European Community Finances White Paper (Cm 7640). This was published on 20 July 2009 and is available in the Library of the House. The figure for 2008 is £7,791 million and the estimate for 2009 is £7,770 million.

That is a lot of money and when one adds to it the money that goes to the IMF, the WTO, the OECD, the UN (£75.6 million) that deficit begins to look a little more comprehensible.

You can still see it

The first story on Monday's Newsnight was about the Government's intention to cap non-EU immigration. It remains on iPlayer till 11.19 pm on Monday, July 5. You can watch the whole programme here. Lord Pearson's contribution starts here.

Of course if they are British eurocrats ....

On June 24 Lord Eden of Winton asked HMG "what savings are being made in the administration of Government". Lord Sassoon's response was quite bracing:

My Lords, the Government have announced savings in the current financial year of £6.2 billion, of which £360 million will be made in the administration budgets of central government departments, and £400 million will be made in the administrative costs of quangos. The Government have also announced in the Budget £3.3 billion of savings from freezing public sector pay for two years from 2011-12 for those earning above £21,000. A portion of these savings will be made within administration budgets. The Government are committed to reducing the administrative costs of Whitehall and of arm's-length bodies by at least one-third. Further details and spending plans will be set out at the spending review on 20 October.

These measures will not be sufficient and there seems to be no mention of the newly instituted quangos such as the Office for Budget Responsibility, whose creation was so egregious that even Direct Democracy has been unhappy about it.

Scrolling down the Hansard page on can find Lord Pearson's question:

My Lords, did the noble Lord see the recent article in the Daily Telegraph which estimates that up to 2,000 Eurocrats are paid more than the Prime Minister? Why do we go on sending some £8 billion in cash every year to support these people, who then go on to inflict such ruinous over-regulation on our economy?

To which Lord Sassoon replied:

I thank the noble Lord for his concern about the costs of bureaucracy in Brussels, about which we, too, are of course very concerned. The Government will be taking steps to make sure that the budget contribution to Europe fully reflects the need for Europe to restrain its costs. So far as concerns Eurocrats, we want to make sure that the best-quality British officials play their part as senior officials in Brussels.

Translated into every-day language, this says that HMG will make lots of noises about the need for Europe to restrain its costs but nothing much will come of that. However, we are going to make very sure that our people can get as much from the trough as all others do.

No that was not quite the question

On Wednesday, June 23 there was a Starred Question in the House of Lords about this country's international competitiveness, asked by Baroness Valentine. It was very general, deliberately so, one assumes:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take to protect and strengthen the United Kingdom's international competitiveness.

The reply by Baroness Wilcox was also very general:

My Lords, we are committed to maintaining and improving our international competitiveness by restoring macroeconomic stability, helping provide infrastructure, science and research and better linking higher and further education into the economy. We will ensure that regulation is proportionate and will work towards having the most competitive corporate tax regime in the G20.

Then there were other general questions and answers. Towards the end of the allotted 7 minutes Lord Pearson asked:

My Lords, does the noble Baroness recall the estimates made by the EU enterprise and industry commissioner, Mr Gunter Verheugen, that EU overregulation was costing us some 6.4 per cent of GDP per annum-around £84 billion today? Why do Her Majesty's Government insist on staying on the "Titanic" when the iceberg of international competition is staring us in the face?

To this Baroness Wilcox gave a very curious reply:

The noble Lord will be very pleased to know that we have already said that we will look seriously at the gold plating that we have been doing to European Union regulations. I am sure that he will support us in that.

Very nice, too, except that this was a reply to a completely different question, one that had not been asked.

Lord Pearson on Premier Radio

Lord Pearson will be giving a wide-ranging interview on Premier Radio, to be broadcast on Saturday at 8 pm. More information on the UKIP website.