A win for the Lib Dems, the Conservatives lost overall control in 2019 but run the council in coalition with “independents”. [In this case Owl puts independents in quotes as the picture is rather confused about aligned and unaligned councillors.] 

In Owl’s view, it isn’t sufficient for Independents just to claim “independence” they need to make clear where they are coming from, their priorities and what core values they hold.

To have any influence they will have to form groupings, alliances or align themselves with others and voters need to be able to assess which direction this might take.

www.radioexe.co.uk 

A former Cullompton mayor is now one of the town’s representatives of Mid Devon District Council, following a close by-election victory.

Liberal Democrat James Buczkowski, who also serves as a town councillor, secured victory in the Cullompton South by-election triggered by the resignation of 94-year-old Eileen Andrews [Independent]

He defeated Conservative candidate Rosemary Berry, herself a former district councillor, by 318 votes to 279 in Thursday’s poll [7 April] Labour’s Jason Chamberlain received 67 votes.

Turnout was just 21 per cent with 668 people voting. Four ballots were rejected.

Cllr Buczkowski’s campaign promised to put “Cullompton first” and accused the district council of not listening to the town’s residents.

His three-point plan focussed on ensuring “Cullompton residents are listened to and council ‘solutions’ are right” for the town, adding: “The ‘one-size-fits all’ thinking must come to an end.”

The plan says Cllr Buczkowski will “oppose all development without proper infrastructure and services” and that the town must have a “fair share of the district council resources.”

The result increases the opposition Lib Dems to 11 seats on the council, which is run by a coalition of independents and Conservatives. The Tories lost overall control in the 2019 election.

The Lib Dems had initially served in the coalition but were replaced by the Conservatives after a disagreement with independent leader Bob Deed over the future of the Greater Exeter Strategic Plan.

Ahead of next year’s full local elections, when all 42 seats will be contested, the Conservatives have 20 seats followed by the Liberal Democrats (11), independents and non-aligned (9) and the Green Party (2).

Result: Cullompton South (Mid Devon District Council)

• James Buczkowski (Lib Dem): 318
• Rosemary Berry (Conservatives): 279
• Jason Chamberlain (Labour): 67

“Dominic Grieve, a former Tory MP and attorney general, told the newspaper: “The long list of untrue statements to parliament, and the failure to correct them as required both by the rules of the Commons and the ministerial code, should be of great concern to all who believe in the need for integrity from government. “

www.thelondoneconomic.com 

Boris Johnson and his ministers have lied to parliament dozens of times in the past two years amid a “crisis of honesty” in Westminster, it has emerged.

The prime minister has not lodged any corrections to the official House of Commons record, despite being repeatedly reprimanded by the statistics watchdog and having his falsehoods pointed out by opposition MPs and fact-checkers.

Labour has hit out at Johnson for disrespecting the public with a “litany of lies and falsehoods”, while the former Tory attorney general Dominic Grieve told The Independent that the figures suggested “a disregard for both good governance and truth”.

‘Degrading his office’

As many as 17 false statements have been attributed to Johnson following an investigation by the newspaper, working with Full Fact, including misleading claims about Partygate, refugees, the pandemic and the economy.

Ministers have made at least 27 uncorrected false statements to parliament since the general election in December 2019.

Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, said Johnson was guilty of “degrading his office”. 

“This litany of lies and falsehoods show a total lack of respect for the public from this Conservative government and its ministers,” she told The Independent.

“The ministerial code is absolutely clear that mistakes should be corrected as soon as possible, and purposely misleading parliament should mean resignation.

“But ministers are instead taking their lead from the prime minister himself, who has no issue with repeating mistruths and conspiracy theories.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey added: “Every time Mr Johnson and his ministers have misled parliament is just another blow to people’s trust in his sinking ship of a government – those who mislead the public must be held accountable.

“It’s clear that Mr Johnson has already lost the trust of the nation. Now the very least we should do is be able to hold his Trumpian behaviour to account.”

Savile slur

Among the false statements made by Johnson was his claim that Sir Keir Starmer had “spent most of his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile”. The slur has still not been retracted, despite the Labour leader later being mobbed by protestors in Westminster.

In the same parliamentary debate on 31 January, the prime minister claimed that the government had “cut crime by 14 per cent”. He was reprimanded over that assertion by Sir David Norgrove, the chair of the UK Statistics Authority, who said the figure was “true only if fraud and computer misuse are excluded”.

Other ministers guilty of making false statements in the same period include Matt Hancock, Priti Patel and Nadine Dorries.

Dominic Grieve, a former Tory MP and attorney general, told the newspaper: “The long list of untrue statements to parliament, and the failure to correct them as required both by the rules of the Commons and the ministerial code, should be of great concern to all who believe in the need for integrity from government. 

“It marks a major departure from prior practice and suggests a disregard both for good governance and truth.”

‘New and shocking’

It comes amid mounting calls for changes that would force ministers to correct false statements. The current process relies on the voluntary submission of corrections to Hansard.

Will Moy, head of fact-checkers Full Fact, told The Independent: “The problem isn’t people making honest mistakes, it’s people making mistakes and not being willing to correct them – that isn’t honest behaviour,” he told The Independent.

“It is ridiculous that you have a system where the speaker can throw an MP out of the House of Commons for accusing somebody of lying, but an MP who is lying cannot be sanctioned in any way.

“The only MPs who can correct the record are government ministers, and there’s no mechanism to make them do that when they don’t want to.”

Warning of a “crisis of honesty”, he added: “The persistent failure of the prime minister and other ministers to correct the record when they are clearly required to do so under parliamentary rules creates a crisis not just of their own behaviour, but of parliamentary accountability.

“In this case we’re seeing senior government ministers, and the prime minister, repeating claims that are not true, and that they have had every chance to get right, up to and including their own regulator of statistics telling them what they’re saying is not true.

“That is both new and shocking.”

Five key questions Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty have yet to answer

Rupert Neate www.theguardian.com 

How much tax did the chancellor’s wife pay on her £11.5m annual dividends from Infosys – and where did she pay it?

Why did Sunak and Murty have US green cards and when did they give them up?

Did Sunak waive his salary as a minister in 2020 in order to avoid paying US tax?

Does Murty have other overseas income beyond Infosys – how much, what tax does she pay and where?

How much money is in Sunak’s blind trust, and where is it located?

As Akshata Murty bows to pressure to pay UK taxes because they are not compatible with her husband’s role as Chancellor of the Exchequer, new allegations emerge about him being a beneficiary of tax havens.

Are taxes only for the little people? – Owl

Anna Isaac www.independent.co.uk

Rishi Sunak has been listed as a beneficiary of tax haven trusts while setting taxes in the UK as chancellor of the exchequer, according to documents seen by The Independent.

Trusts in the British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands, created to help manage the tax and business affairs of his wife Akshata Murty’s family interests, note Mr Sunak as a beneficiary in 2020, according to people familiar with Ms Murty’s financial affairs and evidence reviewed by this publication. Mr Sunak became chancellor in February that year, and had previously been chief secretary to the Treasury since 2019.

Documents seen by The Independent show trusts linked to Ms Murty, her family and companies linked to their businesses. In a number of them, Mr Sunak was listed as a beneficiary.

Pat McFadden, Labour’s shadow chief Treasury secretary, said Mr Sunak being listed as a beneficiary of tax haven trusts is “extremely serious” and called for answers.

He said: “We need urgent answers from the chancellor as to why he has been linked to a tax haven. We need full transparency about this and the other stories about the chancellor emerging over the past 24 hours.”

Questions about Mr Sunak’s financial arrangements have come to the fore since The Independent revealed on Wednesday that Ms Murty had non-dom status, meaning she is not obligated to pay UK tax on foreign earnings. Sources also claim that Ms Murty, whose family business is worth £3.5bn, had created a trust which would perpetuate some of these benefits of non-dom status beyond the 15-year limit.

In a U-turn on Friday, Ms Murty announced she will now pay UK taxes on all her worldwide income, saying she did not want her financial arrangements to be a “distraction” for her husband in his role as chancellor.

A spokesperson for Mr Sunak said they “did not recognise” the claims on use of tax havens, while a spokesperson for Ms Murty declined to comment. They previously claimed that she was a non-dom as a result of being an Indian citizen, though experts pointed out that use of the tax status was her choice.

On Friday, Mr Sunak admitted he had also held a US green card while living in Downing Street. Green card holders must pay tax in America and declare their intention to make the US their permanent home.

A spokesperson for the chancellor said he had used his green card for travel purposes until October 2021 on his first US trip in a government capacity, at which point he returned it after discussion with authorities. They added: “Rishi Sunak followed all guidance and continued to file US tax returns, but specifically as a non-resident, in full compliance with the law. All laws and rules have been followed and full taxes have been paid where required in the duration he held his green card.”

Last year she collected dividends of £11.5m from her estimated £700m stake in Infosys, the IT firm set up by her father, potentially saving around £4.5m in UK taxes through her non-dom status. She has previously stated that she “has always and will continue to pay UK taxes on all her UK income”.

It comes as Mr Sunak’s popularity with voters has sunk to an all-time low, according to polls, as increases in inflation and national insurance contributions (NICs), as well as energy bills, spark a cost-of-living crisis. Mr Sunak’s spring statement last month was criticised for not doing enough to help the worst off.

Sir Keir Starmer has accused Mr Sunak was guilty of “breathtaking hypocrisy” for raising taxes while his wife benefits from non-dom status. The Labour party, the Lib Dems and the SNP have all urged the chancellor to give further details of their financial affairs, and the extent to which he may benefit personally.

While the Treasury has said that Mr Sunak declared his wife’s tax status when he became a minister in 2018 and again when he joined the department, officials told The Independent they had not been informed, and felt “uncomfortable” about the implications. The Treasury and Cabinet Office did not respond to requests for comment concerning Mr Sunak’s alleged beneficiary status in the British Virgin or Cayman islands trusts.

Tax havens have no – or minimal – taxes on companies and other corporate structures and entities. They also often offer a high degree of financial secrecy often when companies are registered there, or trusts are created as beneficiaries of companies within their jurisdiction. Their use by British residents is entirely legal.

Ms Murty may be making use of a loophole left after the tightening of non-dom status by then chancellor George Osborne in 2015. By creating a trust as a non-dom, that entity can continue to have non-dom status even if its beneficiaries are no longer able to choose to use the option for tax benefits. The rules allowing this were brought into effect on 6 April 2017, and there is no suggestion of legal wrongdoing in this or her use of non-dom status.

Johnson’s political cowardice applies the brake to cheap energy as he bets nuclear 

Nils Pratley www.theguardian.com 

The two main criticisms of the government’s new energy security strategy are fair. The tiptoeing around onshore wind, which got gentle words of encouragement but no change to planning regulations, looks a case of political cowardice. It is perverse to apply a handbrake to “one of the cheapest forms of renewable power”, to use the government’s own description, when public opinion is broadly supportive of turbines on land. Objections from Tory backbenchers should have been ignored.

Equally, the lack of new measures on energy efficiency is bizarre since every serious body, from the International Energy Agency to our own National Infrastructure Commission, has been banging the drum for ages. “A gradual transition following the grain of behaviour” translates as a win for the cold hand of the Treasury.

There were two clear positives in the mix, it should be said. First, the target for more offshore wind is genuinely ambitious. A fivefold increase in capacity to 50 gigawatts by the end of the decade is a significant upgrade on the previous aim of 40GW. The target may even be achievable given the current rate of progress. And from the perspective of energy security – the focus of this policy, don’t forget – offshore’s bigger turbines and higher load factors are always going to score well versus onshore.

Second, solar was given a boost with the aim (though not a target, note) to increase capacity fivefold by 2035. It is illogical that the government seems more willing to flex planning rules for solar than for wind, but solar is the quiet success story of the renewables revolution. It has outpaced every cost projection over the past decade. Expansion looks the easiest to deliver.

Then, though, one comes to the meat of the plan. The big bet on nuclear is, to put it mildly, hopeful. The government is trying to replace current capacity that will largely go offline by 2050 and also double nuclear’s share of electricity supply versus today’s position. The plan strains credibility. Up to eight new reactors – call it four new two-reactor plants the size of Hinkley Point C – is an enormous undertaking.

The best that can be said is that it is possible to imagine how events could, possibly, run favourably. Hinkley could arrive within its revised timetable without further cost hiccups. Sizewell C in Suffolk, the next plant on the block, could attract the desired rush of private-sector investors under a new financing model that would allow the juice to be priced within the £60-£70 a megawatt hour range of political acceptability. And success in financing Sizewell could breed confidence and get the show rolling.

There are, though, a lot of assumptions in that list. The biggest unknown is whether the government is prepared to back the EPR design – the one used at Hinkley and set for Sizewell – for all the new plants. Logic says it should because mixing and matching designs is a recipe for higher costs and surprises, a point stressed by the energy analyst Peter Atherton. The productivity gain in constructing Hinkley’s second reactor, for example, is said to be 15%. In a complex process, replicating one design has demonstrable value.

The government is not, though, at the stage where it can have sufficient confidence to back EPRs wholeheartedly and mean it. Talk of “leading the world” in nuclear construction should therefore be filed under “believe it when you see it”. You have to know what you plan to build to make such boasts. There is an alarming nuclear-sized question mark at the heart of this strategy.

Seve Bell’s cartoon comment:

The Economist noted: Copy, paste,repeat

(It’s supposed to provide benefits)

Owl notes that the only EPR nuclear reactors generating any power yet are the ones built by the Chinese in China, operating commercially from 2018 and 2019.

The construction of the Olkiluoto 3 power station in Finland commenced in August 2005. It is late and over budget. Olkiluoto 3 achieved first criticality in December 2021. Grid connection has just taken place with regular generation finally expected in July.

Construction of the French EPR at Flamanville started in December 2007 is also late and over budget. After many problems, including the late discovery of welding issues, the revised schedule fuel loading is to take place in mid 2023. 

At Hinkley Point C, final government approval was given in September 2016 and, after the (now usual) set of cost increases and delays, has an expected operational start date of June 2026. In the light of Olkiluoto and Flamanville this still looks optimistic to Owl

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has proposed a two-year ban on some foreigners buying homes.

www.bbc.co.uk

The measure comes as the country grapples with some of the worst housing affordability issues in the world.

Prices have jumped more than 20%, pushing the average home in Canada to nearly C$817,000 ($650,000; £495,000) – more than nine times household income.

But industry analysts say it’s not clear a ban on foreign buyers will address the problem.

Data on purchases by foreign buyers in Canada is limited, but research suggests they amount for a small fraction of the market.

“I don’t think it’s going to have a huge impact,” said Ben Myers, president of advisory firm Bullpenn Research & Consulting in Toronto, who found foreigners accounted for just 1% of purchases in 2020, down from 9% in 2015 and 2016.

“It’s a fairly low number and let’s face it, the people that really want to buy … are going to find alternative ways to do it.”

Mr Myers said the soaring housing costs reflect strong population growth and a shortage of supply, due in part to rules that restrict development.

The issues have worsened since the pandemic hit in 2020, when policymakers in Canada and elsewhere slashed interest rates to stabilise the economy, lowering borrowing costs and boosting demand even further.

The moves have fuelled the soaring housing prices seen in many markets around the world, but in Canada the disconnect between home prices and incomes is one of the most dramatic, according to OECD data.

Campaign promise

Mr Trudeau pledged to tackle housing affordability during his campaign for election last year.

In addition to the temporary ban on foreign buyers, the budget proposal his government unveiled on Thursday sets aside billions to spur new construction and proposes new programmes, such as a tax-free savings account for first-time buyers.

Mr Trudeau has also discussed banning certain bidding processes that favour investors, who by some measures have accounted for about one in five homes purchased in Canada since 2014.

The proposed ban on foreign buyers would exempt permanent residents and foreign students and workers, as well as those buying their primary residence.

The proposal builds on actions such as special taxes that some parts of Canada have already taken against out-of-town and foreign buyers.

In Ontario, for example, provincial Premier Doug Ford recently announced plans to raise an existing tax on foreign buyers from 15% to 20% and expand it beyond Toronto to the entire province.

While foreign purchases are not the driver of the affordability issues, taxing them at least captures revenue that can be re-deployed to address such problems, said Steve Pomeroy, head of Focus Consulting, a housing policy firm.

“If you ban them, you don’t really have much of an impact on suppressing rising home prices and you give up the revenue,” he said.

New Zealand introduced a similar measure banning foreign buyers in 2018.

“It’s good politics because it’s easy to blame a victim that nobody cares about,” Mr Pomeroy added. “I don’t think it will have much of an impact.”

Paul Kershaw, professor at the University of British Columbia and founder of Generation Squeeze, also said he saw little in Mr Trudeau’s proposal likely to slow price increases or significantly address affordability.

“It’s not clear the housing measures will be sufficient to break Canada’s addiction to high and rising home prices,” he said, noting that for existing homeowners, the high prices help amass wealth.

Mr Pomeroy said he does expect price appreciation to slow in coming months, as the central bank raises interest rates. The Canadian housing market is particularly susceptible to such moves, since many buyers rely on five-year mortgages rather than the long-term ones common in the US and UK.

But higher interest rates will only make it less affordable for prospective buyers trying to break into the market, he warned.

Mr Myers said over the long-term, he expects hot markets such as Toronto and Vancouver to become dominated by renters, as regular buyers get priced out of the market, unless politicians address supply.

But Mr Pomeroy said high development costs means that adding supply will not necessarily reduce prices, unless the additions are dramatic.

“Unless you’ve got born into the right family … the prospects for young buyers are quite dim,” he said.

(This year the judges decided not to include Cornwall, in recognition of the problems caused in the county’s housing market by incomers buying second homes.) 

Pity they didn’t extend that to Devon as well. – Owl

Dan Wilkins www.exmouthjournal.co.uk

People of Budleigh Salterton already knew they lived in an idyllic part of East Devon, but now the whole country knows it. 

The seaside town best known for its pebbly beach and independent shops has been named in The Sunday Times Best Places to Live 2022, released today (Friday, April 8) and is one of the top 10 locations in the South West. 

A rather dull Sunday morning with very little sun but somehow Budleigh Beach is still just as beautiful. I just wish I had taken some money with me so that I could have bought some of the freshly caught fish straight off the beach! According to the judges, ‘unspoilt’ Budleigh is ‘no longer a sleepy retirement town’ and has become a ‘hotspot’ for young families, ‘lured by Colyton Grammar, one of the best schools in the Southwest’, as well as a ‘truly lovely’ beach. 

Judges also said the town’s literary and music festivals give Budleigh ‘intellectual bonus points’. 

The town has grown by 6 per cent since 2020 and for those looking to re-locate to Budleigh, the average house price is currently £445,000 – according to data supplied to The Times by Halifax. 

The national newspaper’s expert judges assessed a wide range of factors, from schools, transport and broadband to culture, green spaces and the health of the high street. 

The judges looked to celebrate improving towns, villages or city centres, attractive, well-designed homes and locations ‘bursting with community spirit’. 

Other South West locations named in the list include Bridport and Sherborne in Dorset, Bristol, Charlton Kings in Gloucestershire, Ashburton, Stroud and Wellow. Chalke Valley in Wiltshire was named top in the South West. 

Helen Davies, The Times and Sunday Times property editor, said: “The Sunday Times Best Places to Live list is necessarily subjective.  

“Leave it just to statistics and you will never capture the spirit of a place. For that, you need to visit to take into account that ‘you have to be here’ feeling. Is the pub dog-friendly, for example? Can you live car-free? What are the schools and houses like? Is it multicultural and multigenerational, and can it offer a good way of life to lots of different sorts of people?” 

To view The Sunday Times Best Places to Live 2022, visit https://www.thetimes.co.uk/best-places-to-live    

Exeter-based construction giant is in administration and assets are only likely to pay for small fraction of money owed, a new report reveals

William Telford www.devonlive.com

The fallout from the collapse of South West construction giant Midas is even worse than initially thought with more than £60m of debts now unlikely to be paid including £4.5m owed to its own employees. New figures from administrators reveal nearly £70m is being claimed by creditors with more than 1,500 of them likely to receive no cash.

Reports from global business advisory firm Teneo Financial Advisory Ltd show the two main companies in the Midas family – Midas Group Ltd and Midas Construction Ltd – have realisable assets of just £8,354,644. But when preferential and secured creditors are paid it means there will be a predicted shortfall of £60,290,904 for the hundreds of small firms and individuals in the supply chain.

This includes £4,578,369 owed to 300 Midas workers who were made redundant when the companies went bust. That’s an average of about £15,000 each. Although headquartered in Exeter, Midas was involved in huge construction projects across the South West and companies owed cash include several in Plymouth.

Midas Group Ltd and its subsidiaries Midas Construction Ltd, Midas Retail Ltd, Mi-Space (UK) Ltd, Mi-Space Property Services Ltd, Midas Commercial Developments Ltd and Falmouth Developments Ltd all fell into administration in January 2022 blaming a toxic cocktail of Covid, inflation, money owed to them but not paid, and cash flow problems for causing a financial doomsday.

Administrators at Teneo Financial Advisory Ltd have now revealed Midas Group Ltd owned two office blocks, in Newton Abbot, in Devon, and Newport, in Wales, which are expected to sell for £1m and £1.3m. But when preferential creditors have been paid it leaves just £844,169.

Once some secondary preferential claims are settled it will mean an estimated deficiency for creditors of £9,015,966. A list of those owed money shows 61 employees are claiming £1,407,669 of that sum.

But the vast majority of the Midas debt is with its commercial construction arm Midas Construction Ltd. A report by Teneo shows £7,329,500 is likely to be clawed back from customers who owed the firm money. But this is a fraction of the £48,560,404 it was owed when it went belly up, and included the £36,902,858 value of work in progress when Midas fell into administration.

Once preferential and secondary preferential creditors and floating charge holders have been paid it leaves a mere £3,394,786 for unsecured creditors. But £51,274,938 is owed to more than 1,500 of these creditors meaning there will be a shortfall of £47,880,152. The list of creditors shows Midas 239 employees are owed £3,170,700 of that sum.

Chancellor rejected calls to rethink £200 ‘heat now, pay later’ loan – despite fears it will pile up further debt

Rob Merrick www.independent.co.uk

Rishi Sunak rejected proposals from a fellow cabinet minister to give more help to families hit by soaring home energy bills, a leaked document reveals.

The chancellor was urged to rethink a £200 loan that households will receive in the autumn, amid widespread criticism that the “heat now, pay later” scheme will pile up further debt.

The Department for Business put forward three options to ease the cost of living crisis, as part of the energy security strategy that aims to wean the UK off foreign fossil fuels.

Kwasi Kwarteng’s department suggested increasing the £200 payment to “£500 or more”, either for all households or for the poorest, an early draft obtained by the i newspaper shows. A second option would have delayed repayment of the £200, which the Treasury is saying must be repaid at the rate of £40 a year over the following five years.

Third, the business secretary’s officials proposed exempting the poorest homes from the need to repay at all, turning the loan into a grant.

A Treasury spokesperson did not dispute that the proposals had been rejected, after they did not appear in the strategy – which is under fire for failing to offer any immediate help with bills.

Mr Kwarteng admitted it would be at least “two or three years” before new infrastructure investments would have any impact on soaring fuel costs.

The price cap on annual domestic bills leapt by almost £700 this month to nearly £2000, and is expected to soar by up to a further £1,000 in the autumn.

Analysts have warned that the UK is heading for the worst plunge in living standards since the 1950s, along with an explosion in poverty that will push 500,000 more children below the breadline.

The End Fuel Poverty Coalition has warned that vulnerable families will be pushed further into debt by the loan, and criticised the decision to make it compulsory.

Labour has branded the loan a “scam”, arguing that around a million people who will not receive it – first-time buyers, separated couples, students and care leavers – will still be liable for the future charges.

Asked if Mr Sunak had rejected the proposed rethink, a Treasury spokesperson told The Independent: “We are not commenting on leaked documents.”

The leak also revealed that Mr Kwarteng’s hopes of dramatically increasing onshore wind farm investment had also bitten the dust amid the Whitehall wrangling.

The early draft proposed increasing output to 45GW by 2035, saying: “Onshore wind is currently the second-cheapest form of electricity generation.”

But Boris Johnson bowed to pressure from Tory MPs to keep the strict planning rules that act as an effective ban on new onshore wind farms.

Asked why, the prime minister said: “People feel that they affect the beauty of the countryside. I understand that.”

EDF has raised its energy prices in France by just 4%, compared to the 54% increase consumers in UK have now been hit with.

Max Channon www.walesonline.co.uk

While it is largely owned by the French state, EDF – which stands for Électricité de France – is one of the largest electricity suppliers in the UK. The UK’s regional electricity companies were privatised in 1990, following the privatisation of British Gas in 1986.

Like all other energy suppliers in the UK, EDF has raised its prices on this side of The Channel after the UK price cap was increased by £693 – or 54% per cent – due to the record increase in global gas prices. However, in France, EDF has been forced to take a £7billion pound hit to protect French households from the price rises.

France’s Government capped the domestic price rises at just 4%. French president Emmanuel Macron – who faces elections later this month – also cut tax on electricity and has pledged to subsidise petrol by 15c a litre.

Ofgem, Britain’s independent energy regulator, announced the 54% energy price cap rise back in February. It said that the increase, that came into force on April 1, saw an increase of £693 from £1,277 to £1,971 per year for UK customer’s on default tariffs paying by direct debit. Prepayment customers saw an increase of £708 from £1,309 to £2,017.

“The price cap is updated twice a year and tracks wholesale energy and other costs,” said Ofgem. “It stops energy companies from making excessive profits, ensuring customers pay no more than a fair price for their energy.”

In a statement released when the UK increases were announced, EDF said: “We know this news will not be welcome and we want to be fully transparent, giving our customers as much notice as possible.

“We will be writing to customers on standard variable tariffs in the coming weeks to explain how these changes affect their own household bills. We’re working with the Government on how the support schemes announced yesterday will be implemented. Customers with questions about these schemes should check our website where updates will be provided, helping to keep our phone lines free for those in need of urgent support.

“At EDF, we have continued providing support to customers, delivering £2.1million of support to customers last year. We are helping customers monitor and reduce how much energy they need through provision of smart meters and online tools and donations of energy efficient white goods such as washing machines and fridges.

“However, all suppliers are struggling in the face of unprecedented energy market conditions with global gas prices having increased by 500% over the past year. Since last summer around 30 energy suppliers have failed. EDF stepped in last year to rescue more than 500,000 customers of failed suppliers, at a significant financial cost.”

Philippe Commaret, Managing Director of Customers at EDF, said at the time: “We know that these changes, driven by global gas prices, will not be welcome news for customers, but we want to be fully transparent and give our customers as much notice as possible. We’ve never stopped offering our customers help and will continue to do so, although the scale of the global problem means we are constrained in how much we can do.

“It is good to see Government acting now to take some of the sting from the forthcoming rise in April, although we know many customers will continue to struggle. We will work with Government to implement the schemes in the best way possible for customers.

“The market also needs longer term reform to ensure we don’t end up here again and Britain needs more of its own nuclear and renewable power generation and greater energy efficiency to reduce reliance on gas from other countries.”

Back in October last year, during a row over post-Brexit fishing rights, France’s Europe minister Clement Beaune had suggested France could cut off Britain’s imported energy supply. Mr Beaune told French radio station Europe 1 that the Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA) agreed as part of the Brexit divorce deal should be “implemented fully”, threatening action if it was not.

Asked what retaliations could be taken, Mr Beaune pointed to both UK exports to France and European energy exports to the UK.

He said: “The UK depends on our energy exports, they think they can live alone while also beating up on Europe and, given that it doesn’t work, they engage in aggressive one-upmanship.”

The UK Government has now promised to take back control of energy prices with its long-awaited energy strategy which aims to make 95% of electricity low carbon by 2030. Ministers are promising “cleaner and more affordable energy” to be made in this country by boosting wind, new nuclear, solar and hydrogen.

On April 6, Boris Johnson said the strategy, including new nuclear and offshore wind plans, would reduce the UK’s dependence on foreign sources of energy. There has been particular worldwide concern about the reliance on Russian oil and gas since the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Under the Government’s fresh plans a new body, Great British Nuclear, will be launched to bolster the UK’s nuclear capacity with the hope of up to 24 gigawatts (GW) of electricity by 2050 coming from the source of power, 25% of the projected electricity demand. It is hoped the focus on nuclear will deliver up to eight reactors, equivalent to one reactor a year instead of one a decade.

Prime Minister Mr Johnson said yesterday: “We’re setting out bold plans to scale up and accelerate affordable, clean and secure energy made in Britain, for Britain, from new nuclear to offshore wind, in the decade ahead.

“This will reduce our dependence on power sources exposed to volatile international prices we cannot control, so we can enjoy greater energy self-sufficiency with cheaper bills.”

The team behind the Eden Project is still interested in development at junction 27 of the M5, councillors have been told. In 2020, Mid Devon’s local plan outlined how a visitor centre, hotel, outdoor adventure zone and outlet shopping could be among the facilities to be considered at the 71 hectares of land near Uffculme.

Ollie Heptinstall www.devonlive.com

It comes after initial plans were revealed years ago for a £200 million surf lake and a ‘mini’ Eden Project, backed by the Cornwall landmark’s co-creator Sir Tim Smit and other business partners. However, a new report says the covid pandemic and market changes mean no further plans have progressed, raising the question of “whether changes are required to some elements of the scheme in order to support delivery.”

Eden was recently awarded £250,000 from the UK Community Renewal Fund to allow it to refine and develop proposals for the site, with the report stressing that “interest in the scheme does remain” from the company. This work began recently and is expected to be completed later this year, according to the update, presented this week to a meeting of Mid Devon District Council’s (MDDC) ruling cabinet.

The council is also likely to start ‘enabling discussions’ in the coming weeks “with and between landowners and prospective occupiers” to get further clarity and consider what action is needed to progress work.

“The outcome of such discussions will clearly be important and will allow all parties to better understand the timescale of any development,” the report said. An update was also provided on development around junction 28 at Cullompton., which Mid Devon’s local plan identifyies as “the principal focus of development within the district.”

Up to 5,000 homes could be built at Culm Garden Village, east of the town, while work is progressing well on the proposed new Cullompton railway station, located off junction 28. Councillors were told that a lack of commercial premises in Devon and high demand means that “opportunity does therefore exist for further commercial development to progress – driving economic growth and job creation within the district.”

As part of the Culm Garden Village project, the council has instructed an employment and skills study to consider how the village can contribute to further employment growth in and around junction 28. It will see how this can be done in a way which supports new development, while reducing car ownership and longer commuting. Provisional findings are expected soon.

Councillor Richard Chesterton (Conservative, Lower Culm), cabinet member for planning and economic regeneration told the meeting: “Whilst progress may have been slower than anticipated in the recent time, work is underway in relation to development opportunities at our motorway junctions and they do continue to offer opportunities for further economic development and growth within the district.”

Deputy leader Bob Evans (Conservative, Lower Culm) said: “I think one of the really vital key elements here, to the opportunities that definitely lie at both junctions for this authority, is that engagement is key and listening to the key stakeholders – that includes residents and local businesses – to what they would see as the key opportunities.”

But Councillor John Downes (Lib Dem, Boniface), chair of the council’s economic policy development group, is concerned that both junctions, due to their close proximity, “could offer similar services to the detriment of each” and wanted them to be viewed “in the whole.” He said the council should be thinking “outside the box” about what to do at both sites, in particular junction 27, and is concerned that the Cullompton site could end up “confused and piecemeal” because of what is already there and what is planned.

“Things could happen in blocks, and the overall objective of making that a destination junction with not just services for motorists but also for the community, like incubator spaces and start-up spaces, [should] get considered in the whole,” Cllr Downes said. He asked for the council’s economic team to commission a review of the two junctions.

“We want the developments to become part of the community so that we’ve got people working locally, living locally, being employed locally, travelling locally – not being a satellite for Exeter,” he said. “Public engagement is essential because I think these two junctions really are the jewels in our crown. They can offer resource and money to the council and they could be destination places and they could benefit the community.”

Leader Bob Deed (New Independent, Cadbury) replied: “I appreciate that dealing with these two junctions holistically is the way forward, but realistically we’re dealing with silos, and it’s not as easy as getting everybody together and knocking their heads together for the benefit of all parties of the end of the day.” Councillor Ben Holdman (Lib Dem, Castle) is worried that “places like Cullompton, Tiverton and Willand are going to get left behind if we concentrate solely just on the junction.”

“They need to be encompassing of the surrounding areas and we need to encourage people back into our town centres and to include Willand’s village centre as well as the other villages.” In reply later in the meeting, Cllr Downes said there was “no intention whatsoever” to do anything at the junctions that would be “to the detriment of the economy of any of our market towns. The idea is to encourage growth, which those communities could be part of.”

Looks to Owl like a corporate and political failure. Dr Norrey has apologised, step forward Cllr Hart it’s now your turn.

Council chief to take control

Ollie Heptinstall, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk 

A lack of sufficient leadership allowed Devon’s inadequate children’s services to “bumble on in a rather pathetic way,” a councillor has claimed.

The comments came at a special meeting of the county council’s children’s scrutiny committee on Wednesday to discuss a recent Ofsted monitoring visit after the service was rated inadequate in 2020.

The visit found many of Devon’s vulnerable children: “remain in unsafe and neglectful circumstances for too long” but that some improvements were being made, especially within the department’s new leadership team.

During the meeting, opposition councillor Julian Brazil (Lib Dem, Kingsbridge) delivered a scathing attack on the council’s management for “failing” in its children’s services for years.

“I’ll put my head above the parapet and say I have full confidence in the leadership team within that department that we have at the moment and I’m sure we will see changes, but I think what disappoints me is I think that both corporately and politically we have allowed this situation to occur,” he said.

It was announced at the meeting that the council’s chief executive, Dr Phil Norrey, would be chairing an ‘improvement board’ for the service.

Cllr Brazil said: “I find it amazing that the chief executive has at last – better later than never I suppose – decided to take a proper hands-on approach to this problem.

“What was happening before? Did they think it was just something else?

“It’s all very well when everything’s going well, but the reason why we have these people in senior leadership positions is that when something goes wrong, they can step in and sort it out and obviously that has not happened. And we have allowed it to bumble on in a rather pathetic way that we find ourselves in this sad position.

“Children’s social services [is] probably the most important thing we do as a council. I accept its complicated and difficult, but how we allowed ourselves to be in a position where our social workers had worse terms and conditions than our neighbouring authorities is an absolute disgrace.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had an apology from the senior leadership team that they’ve allowed this to happen. I don’t think there’s ever been an apology to the children of Devon, to the people of Devon.”

He continued: “Personally, I’m embarrassed and I’m ashamed that I’m part of an institution that has allowed this to happen for so long”

But Cllr Brazil said the new team running the children’s department should be “given the opportunity to turn this around and make it better.”

Dr Norrey admitted it was “really disappointing” that the Ofsted visit in January 2020 concluded that: “we weren’t where we thought we were.

“I think we had a general view of our children’s services, that it was in a better place than it turned out to be. We thought we’d made improvements, we thought [the previous team] had helped move things forward.

“That didn’t turn out to be the case in some critical aspects of our performance, which we were unsighted on and I hold my hands up, and I’m happy to apologise for that from a senior leadership position. That I didn’t see it, that a number of us other senior leaders didn’t see it, that – to some extent – scrutiny didn’t see that we were in a worse position than we thought we were.

“Now we’ve just got to put our shoulder to the wheel and make sure that we don’t get back there.”

Dr Norrey said it “wasn’t normal” for a chief executive to chair an improvement board following an inadequate Ofsted inspection, a role usually given to an ‘improvement advisor,’ appointed in conjunction with the Department for Education.

“We’ve taken a view at this stage that actually, we would get more value out of me taking that on and directing the work of the improvement board, at least in the short term until we find a new improvement advisor.”

He said after slipping behind in terms of pay and conditions, Devon was now “ahead of the game” which would lead to improvements in recruitment and retention of staff.

The councillor responsible for children’s services, Andrew Leadbetter,(Conservative, Topsham) thanked Cllr Brazil for “being honest” but said: “I don’t think we could lay blame at [Dr Norrey’s] door.”

He added: “We’re now moving forward with a new team and let’s be optimistic about that.”

Cllr Leadbetter pointed to the recent Ofsted monitoring report which stated: “Importantly, elected members and corporate leaders are embracing the need to change after a long period of poor outcomes for families in Devon and are progressively prioritising children in the council’s plans.”

Published in February, the latest report found there was a surge in referrals during the pandemic about children who may be in need or at risk of harm, though it has now begun to “plateau.”

But it said the increase, combined with staff shortages and high caseloads, “are all contributing to many children and families not yet receiving the help they need at the time they need it most.”

The report by Ofsted inspector Steve Lowe pointed to some improvements – particularly within the leadership team and its importance at county hall. However it is clear that further work needs to be done.

“In particular, many children for whom there are concerns of significant harm are not seen quickly enough,” the report stated.

On the positives, it said the introduction of a new practice model: “has become increasingly understood by social workers and they are enthusiastic about the future.”

In addition: “Elected members and corporate leaders now prioritise children and families and acknowledge the need to make changes more quickly.”

The visit came after the previous one in May 2021, to assess the quality of social work during the pandemic, concluded that the service was still “at the start of its improvement journey” and “nothing is completely fixed.”

The meeting heard about a number of detailed improvements that were being carried out across the service, including a reduction in the number of days to see a child following a referral.

Across the county it has dropped to four days after being given “priority focus,” down from between five to 16 days in December 2021.

When asked when all the necessary improvements would be made by, Cllr Leadbetter said: “I don’t have a crystal ball.

“I mean, we’re making real improvements. The rate of progress is accelerating, but I’m not prepared to put my head on a chopping block and give a definitive date; I really can’t.”

He later clarified: “I didn’t want to sound flippant when I said about the crystal ball, but a lot of it’s going to depend on our referral rates for example. We’re coming out of this pandemic at the moment, so that’ll make a big difference.

Also, it’s very dependent on our recruitment of staff. If the measures we’ve put in place to increase our staff numbers work, and obviously we hope they do, then that’ll make the improvements a lot quicker.”

An officer added the improvement plan has “some specific measurable time-scales” as well as a “roadmap of the transformation journey” that goes up to 2024.

As Devon gets less than half the money bid for bus improvements.

Hollow catchphrases, signifying nothing. Boris is just kicking sand in the faces of loyal (misguided) Tory voters, taking them for granted. The only way to grab the attention of a Tory politician is to stop voting for them. – Owl

Government funding for Devon buses less than half original bid despite ‘desperate need’

Ollie Heptinstall, Local Democracy sidmouth.nub.news 

Devon is to receive £14 million towards bus improvements – less than half the amount the county council originally bid for.

A £34 million bus improvement plan, described as “ambitious,” was submitted at the end of October. It aimed to make buses cheaper to use, greener, more frequent, and more reliable.

Developed in partnership with Devon’s bus companies, the plan included regional zone tickets to simplify fares in collaboration with neighbouring councils and to bring in ‘young person’ tickets for 16 to 18 -year-olds, an age group most heavily reliant on buses.

However, the £3 billion of government funding available for the ‘Bus Back Better’ programme was then slashed by more than half, with the long-awaited grants being announced by the Department for Transport this week.

While the county council got less than it asked for, Plymouth and Torbay’s bids were snubbed altogether, despite neighbouring Cornwall being chosen as a pilot area with fares to be “slashed” by as much as 40 per cent, thanks to an extra £23.5 million for the county.

A Devon County Council spokesperson said: “We are yet to receive confirmation of this funding settlement from the Department for Transport, so unfortunately we do not have details of whether the money is being awarded for improved services, fares, or bus priority.

“Until we do, we cannot comment further at this stage on what it will mean for our local bus services.”

The new funding comes at a turbulent time for Devon’s bus services, which have been disrupted recently mainly because of a shortage of drivers, which has led to cancellations and reduced timetables.

Councillor Rob Hannaford, leader of the Labour group who will ask for further updates at next week’s cabinet meeting, said in response to the funding announcement: “It’s very good news that Devon has received this substantial funding award, particularly as last week it was rumoured that we had not been successful at all.

“However, it is still less than half of the original bid, and Devon is a very big county, and there is a desperate need to invest in and improve our failing bus service.

“The original bid was a detailed costed initiative, to roll out greener, cheaper environmentally friendly buses, in tandem with more regular services in rural areas to help with connectivity, and drastically reduce commuter car journeys and pollution.

“We will now have to see how far this funding can be stretched in a strategic way across Devon, that has a real impact, which may well mean prioritising some areas of the county, over others, which could mean some hard choices.”

Councillor Julian Brazil (Lib Dem, Kingsbridge) told BBC Radio Devon: “We’re always happy with money, but it’s a drop in the ocean.”

“I mean, when you say we bid for £30+ million that was for £30+ million a year, not just a one-off. It’s all very well putting on new buses, but next year they’ll have to go because we don’t have the money, so it’s by no means a solution whatsoever.”

He said hourly buses into villages were “never going to come back, so we’ve got up with better ways of doing it with the information technology now that’s available.”

“We’ve got to start investing in ring-and-ride, as one example [and] a lot more community buses. Those are the sorts of ways I think – very bespoke individual solutions for individual areas.”

Transport secretary Grant Shapps said of the 31 regions across the country, including Devon, that are getting the cash: “Buses are the most popular way of getting around in this country, but for too long people outside of London have had a raw deal.

“The investment we’re making to ramp up the bus revolution will drive down fares at a time when people’s finances are tight and help connect communities across England.”

Boris Johnson has said politicians’ families should be kept out of politics as he dodged the row over the non-domicile tax status of Rishi Sunak’s wife.

[Boris Johnson has good reason to want to keep families “out of politics”, especially any who may get issued with a Fixed Penalty Notice for breaking Covid rules for holding parties in Downing Street- Owl]

Labour leader Keir Starmer said the chancellor was guilty of “breathtaking hypocrisy”.

Kevin Schofield www.huffingtonpost.co.uk 

Akshata Murty has become embroiled in a major controversy after it emerged she does not pay UK tax on her foreign earnings.

She has a stake in her billionaire father’s IT services company Infosys, from which she receives a multi-million pound annual dividend.

A spokesperson for Murty said her so-called “non-dom” status was a direct result of her Indian citizenship.

“So, according to British law, Ms Murty is treated as non-domiciled for UK tax purposes,” the spokesperson said. “She has always and will continue to pay UK taxes on all her UK income.”

Labour has demanded Sunak reveals how much UK tax his wife has avoided as a result of being a non-dom.

Asked about the row, Johnson said: “I think it is very important in politics if you possibly can to try and keep people’s families out of it.”

Speaking on a visit to Hinkley Point C as the government launched its energy security strategy, the prime minister said: “What I will say is that Rishi and I are working very hard on a massive long-term British energy security strategy, that is what we are focused on.”

But Labour leader Keir Starmer said the chancellor was guilty of “breathtaking hypocrisy”.

He said: “The chancellor has imposed tax rise after tax rise on working people and has said time and again there’s no alternative, we’ve got no option.

“If it now transpires that his wife has used schemes to reduce her own tax, then that is breathtaking hypocrisy and is more evidence of just how out of touch this chancellor is and I think he’s got serious questions to answer in relation to these schemes.”

Plus estimates on how much the Chancellor’s wife may have saved.

The “non-domicile” tax exemption regime was originally introduced in 1799 to shelter those with foreign property from the swinging taxes introduced by prime minister William Pitt the Younger.

Pitt introduced new taxes In 1786 to try to reduce the debt incurred by the American War of Independence. With the country still in debt, Pitt was also forced, in 1797,  to introduce Great Britain’s first-ever income tax. The Napoleonic wars followed almost immediately and Pitt may have seen these coming.

“Non-Dom” status, then, is an echo of our colonial past. 

It is subtly different from nationality and residence and roughly equates to the concept of “homeland”. “Non-Doms” are supposed to have strong links to that “homeland” and demonstrate intent, not to remain in Britain, but to return there. A further curiosity is that you can also inherit the status from your father.

However, if eligible, you still have to make a conscious decision to claim this status. It’s a choice.

Having lost America, the aim of the perk was to keep the new colonial rich, happy. Those who were now left propping up the empire, for example sugar farmers in Jamaica. 

It is, therefore, appropriate to consider this quirk in the light of the current debate on the legacy of slavery.

Slavery was only outlawed completely, though not entirely stopped, in the “Empire” in 1833 and emancipation was not fully achieved in the USA until 1865.

Now is surely the time to abolish this anachronism. – Owl

(Sources – various)

Akshata Murty may have avoided up to £20m in tax with non-dom status

Peter Walker www.theguardian.com (Extracts)

Rishi Sunak’s wife has potentially avoided up to £20m in UK tax by being non-domiciled and pays £30,000 a year to keep the status – revelations that come amid growing political pressure on the chancellor……

……Murty has collected about 5.4bn Indian rupees (£54.5m) in dividends from Infosys, the Indian-headquartered IT business founded by her father, over the past seven and a half years, the period for which there is public data. Non-dom status for that whole period could have saved her about £20m in UK taxes.

Last year she collected dividends of £11.6m. As a higher rate UK taxpayer she would have been expected to pay 38.1% tax on the payout, which works out at £4.4m. Before 2016, the rate was 30.6%. It rose to 39.35% this week.

One factor which could reduce the total Murty would have been eligible to pay would be any reduction under double tax treaties between the UK and India, tax experts said.

Murty’s spokesperson said they had no comment on the £20m figure beyond reiterating she paid relevant taxes on UK and overseas incomes. They accepted that people with such tax arrangements could theoretically minimise payments using tax havens, while saying they had no comment as to whether Murty did this.

Murty has previously collected other dividend income via the tax haven of Mauritius, which does not tax dividends. The spokesperson also declined to elaborate on the initial explanation for Murty’s non-dom tax status – the fact she has Indian citizenship – when this would still mean such a tax arrangement was a choice……

Government industrial strategies are often derided as attempts to pick winners. The UK’s Conservative government has taken a different approach with its new energy strategy. In terms of dealing with the energy bill and climate crises, it’s picking losers.

Damian Carrington www.theguardian.com 

It is crystal clear that transforming the energy efficiency of the nation’s draughty homes should be the No 1 priority. After all, the cheapest, cleanest energy is the energy you no longer use and nothing can be installed faster than insulation.

There are huge opportunities – for example, just 40% of UK homes have sufficient loft insulation. But there is nothing new in the strategy beyond an advice website. Former Tory energy minister Charles Hendry calls this a “major misjudgment” that will “force large numbers of very vulnerable people to be cold next winter when they need not be”.

The next priority should be renewable electricity, now six times cheaper than that from gas-fired power stations. There are 649 wind and solar projects that already have planning permission. These would save more gas than the UK imports from Russia. But the strategy promises nothing to cut the planning regulations that David Cameron used to strangle onshore wind development and large-scale solar farms.

The vast majority of people, including Tory voters, back more wind power in their areas, polling consistently shows. But your future energy bills now will be even higher than they need to be because ministers are worried a tiny minority of people can’t cope with looking at turbines. There is a boost to offshore wind, a genuine British success story, but it is unavoidably more expensive than onshore wind.

The “big bet” Boris Johnson has chosen to take is on nuclear power. Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said this week that “there is a world where we have six or seven sites in the UK” by 2050. That world is never-never land.

Nuclear power is the only major energy technology that has increased in cost in the last decade and routinely suffers from massive time and budget overruns. Even Kwarteng acknowledges that France’s large nuclear fleet “cost a fortune”.

The gamble Johnson is making, with taxpayers’ money, is that nuclear power is a more reliable wager to secure clean future power than renewables and fast-developing energy storage technologies. It’s a long shot. Renewables and storage will develop much faster and get much cheaper due to the rapid learning that comes with small-scale technologies, unlike colossal projects like nuclear.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report on Monday, produced by scientists from across the globe and signed off by 195 governments, mentions renewables, wind, solar and efficiency 67 times in its summary. It cites nuclear once (in brackets), as an example of a technology with high upfront costs.

The UK energy strategy also backs more drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea – which flies in the face of its own net-zero climate targets. Furthermore, the dwindling reserves that remain cannot lower the price of commodities, which is set by a global market. Don’t just take that from me; Kwarteng, energy minister Greg Hands and COP26 president Alok Sharma all agree.

On Monday, after the IPCC report, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said: “The truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness.” That is the UK he is now talking about. The only good news is that shale gas has been sidelined, with a review of safety a sop to the small group of noisy frackheads on the Tory back benches.

Another of Johnson’s “big bets” is on hydrogen, apparently in the hope that it can be used to heat a third of UK homes as an alternative to fossil gas by 2050. That is folly, not least as heat pumps will be much cheaper and less polluting.

Using fossil fuels could produce lots of hydrogen, but also cement our dependence on oil and gas, while belching out CO₂. Green hydrogen – produced from renewables – will be very expensive for years, and the limited supply should be reserved for sectors that are really hard to decarbonise.

Why has the government got this so wrong? It’s partly short-term politics. An “ally” of the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is reported to have defended the refusal to fund more energy efficiency by saying: “We have to be scrutinising every extra penny of taxpayer money that is proposed for spending because ultimately we want to do the Conservative thing and cut taxes for people.” That is, just before the next election.

It is also partly the adherence to the dogma that the only solution to problems is “our treasured free-market economy”, as Kwarteng described it on Tuesday. That is despite the warning in 2011 from the government’s own climate adviser that “leaving [energy efficiency] to the market has never worked anywhere in the world”. He was right. The first of two big failed efficiency schemes saw loft insulations plunge by 93%.

Most depressingly, the energy strategy’s failings seem also partly due to Johnson’s penchant for big, shiny projects, rather than the hard graft of thousands of smaller ones. But the six or seven nuclear power plants he dreams of are likely to follow the same fate as his island airport, garden bridge, and tunnel to Northern Ireland.

Helen Clarkson, at the business-focused Climate Group, said: “We have tools and technologies already available which can radically reduce our energy needs and our carbon emissions now. Energy efficiency measures can deliver immediately in cutting people’s fuel bills and get us on the path to net zero in the longer term. There’s a huge opportunity for a win-win here which the government is passing up.”

First the railways and now the national grid to be effectively (re)nationalised by the Tories!

Owl has always been indoctrinated by them to repeat the mantra: private ownership good, public ownership bad.

Rob Davies www.theguardian.com 

The job of keeping the UK’s electricity and gas flowing will be returned to public control by 2024, under government plans for the effective nationalisation of a division of National Grid.

A new public body, the “Future System Operator”, will have responsibility for planning and managing energy distribution, with a focus on the challenges posed by decarbonisation.

The government said the plan, announced on the eve of the publication of its long-awaited energy strategy, would “drive progress towards net zero while maintaining energy security and minimising costs for consumers”.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said the National Grid, a stock market-listed company since 1995, would be “appropriately compensated” in a transaction that will see the government take control of its Electricity System Operator (ESO), the part of the business that keeps the lights on. Gas distribution assets will also be taken into state ownership.

The National Grid’s chief executive, John Pettigrew, said National Grid “has a critical role to play in the decarbonisation of the economy to reach net zero, while continuing to ensure security of supply at the lowest cost to consumers”.

He said: “We have been working closely with government, industry and the regulator to create a Future System Operator that enables long-term holistic thinking, drives progress towards net zero, and lays the foundations for the regulatory reform necessary to deliver a clean, fair and affordable energy transition.

“We will continue to work closely with all relevant parties to ensure a smooth transition, subject to parliamentary approval and conclusion of the transaction process.”

The Prospect union said it was vital that the skills and experience of people who worked in the National Grid ESO division were retained.

“Workers need certainty on exactly what the new ownership model will look like, and on their future prospects,” it said.

“The government and National Grid should engage with unions to provide commitments and certainty as soon as possible.”

The effective nationalisation of the ESO division comes just three years after it was formally separated from the rest of National Grid, albeit within the same corporate group.

The ESO manages supply and demand on the grid to prevent interruption of supply, keeping the lights on.

The grid houses the infrastructure assets that support the system.

Decision made public after the House went into Easter recess and Ministers not giving interviews.

Especially not Nadine Dorries, famed for her “car crash” interviews. (Owl posts a You Tube of her appearance, last November, at the DMCS Committee: Nadine Dorries still not knowing what Channel 4 actually is.)

Sean O’Grady www.independent.co.uk 

There are many puzzling, not to say troubling, aspects to the government’s proposal to privatise Channel 4, but the most disturbing is the thought that it is a dry run for the crushing of the BBC.

Legislating the move will test the arguments, probe the strength of opposition, preview tactics in the Lords and by the opposition parties, construct a new looser regulatory framework, and construct bogus or flimsy public service obligations that will more than likely be safely ignored by any new owners.

Losing Channel 4 is bad, but it will embolden and educate ministers about the best way to kill the BBC’s journalism. All have profoundly damaging consequences for democratic debate in a country where much of the print and web-based media is in the hands of right-wing interests.

Everything about the Channel 4 privatisation is deeply disquieting, and suggestive that it is only the first of a number of moves to shift the media landscape in the government’s interests. The ultimately doomed attempt to install ex-Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre to neuter Ofcom was another, as was the creation of GB News and the forthcoming new Rupert Murdoch-backed channel. The new boss of Ofcom, Michael Grade, does at least understand broadcasting and business, but he has made disparaging remarks about “woke” Ofcom staff.

One overarching problem is that no minister from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has been on the media to answer the many questions privatisation raises. The secretary of state, Nadine Dorries, once proudly declared that she doesn’t do news interviews unless she’s forced to (as if she were the head of MI5 or the Pope, rather than a workaday politician). There is also little chance of immediate parliamentary scrutiny. The decision was made public just after the House of Commons had gone into recess for Easter. Handy. So there’d be no pesky urgent questions from the opposition or invitations from the DCMS Select Committee to explain what’s up. Like with the earlier announcement on freezing the BBC licence fee, parliament has been ignored.

The £1bn that it is hoped will be raised from the sale will be placed in a sort of foundation for British independent production – even though Channel 4 disbursed this amount every year to its regional hubs in Leeds, Bristol and Glasgow. No longer: so, it’s problematic for “levelling up” too. Goodbye, creative hubs.

It also looks petty. Channel 4 is routinely accused (without much foundation) by Tories of being biased against them and against Brexit, even though Channel 4 News dutifully invites them on and they always refuse. Surely Jon Snow wasn’t that frightening? It was just such a no-show, by the prime minister for their 2019 climate debate, that saw him replaced with a globe fashioned from ice and visibly melting during the show, with Jeremy Corbyn, Nicola Sturgeon, Jo Swinson and other party leaders looking on.

It was a bit bold for Dorothy Byrne, head of news and current affairs at Channel 4, to call him a “known liar” and a “coward” at the Edinburgh Television Festival, though there is some evidence for both claims. Julian Knight, chair of the DCMS Committee, was honest enough to suggest that privatisation did indeed look like revenge.

The ostensible justification for the move – that it’s necessary to compete with Netflix and the like – is the most pernicious feature of this policy. Not only because it is nonsensical, given that Channel 4 has a different remit to Netflix and many of its hit shows feature on Netflix; but because it suggests that the privatisation of Channel 4 is a dry run for the much more ambitious project to crush the BBC. All the same arguments about the need to attract private sector capital and talent, to compete with streaming services and to neutralise perceived “woke” bias, can be applied to the corporation, and indeed Ms Dorries has referred to the “modernising” argument when she said that the abolition of the licence fee should be put out for debate. The privatisation of Channel 4 is the dress rehearsal for a much more important primetime battle.

It is difficult to believe that ministers are planning a wilful destruction of the nation’s most powerful soft power asset, and something cherished and admired the world over, just because they didn’t like the way the BBC covered the referendum. But the spiteful treatment of Channel 4 suggests that they really are that vindictive. “Cultural vandalism”, as the shadow culture secretary, Lucy Powell, calls it, doesn’t allow for how conscious and carefully thought through an act of destruction it all is.

“And… so… although it’s… yeah… and… the… and the.”

Tom Peck www.independent.co.uk (Extract)

This is the verbatim quote, in its entirety – not a word more or less – issued by Nadine Dorries, the actual secretary of state for culture, when, on live TV, she’d got to the end of a weird rant about Channel 4 not providing value for taxpayers’ money, only to be told, by fellow Conservative MP Damian Green, that it had never received any.

By the time she had got to the second “and the”, all she could do was frantically waggle her open palm at a civil servant sitting next to her, desperate for somebody else to start doing the talking before the entire room simply died of embarrassment.

It is, even by the new (and never lower) standards of today, rare for a cabinet minister to so obviously reveal that they do not know anything – anything at all – about the vast area of public life over which they yield significant power.

Nadine Dorries’ “car crash” appearance before the House of Commons DCMS committee meeting November 2021, not entirely on top of her ministerial brief but par for the course for the Boris Cabinet – Owl

Taxes are for the little people – Owl

by: Sarah Wilson www.bigissue.com 

While millions of UK households face huge energy bill increases, Shell’s annual report shows the oil giant paid no tax on its North Sea production in 2021 – and even got a £92m tax refund from the government.

Shell paid no tax on its oil and gas production in the North Sea for the fourth year in a row despite soaring global energy prices and record company profits, new documents show. 

The oil giant instead received $121m (£92m) in tax refunds paid by the UK Treasury for the decommissioning of old oil platforms, its 2021 annual report revealed.

The reports have led climate and environment groups to call for a windfall tax on oil and gas companies to combat the cost of living crisis. Millions of workers in the UK face a hike in national insurance contributions, energy bills and a squeeze on daily essentials like grocery shopping.

The threshold at which income tax must be paid has also been frozen, meaning more people will pay income tax while pay rises could take employees into new tax bands. 

Dustin Benton, policy director at Green Alliance, said: “Oil and gas multinationals are making supernormal profits in the UK while ordinary people are struggling to pay their heating bills.

“Windfall taxes have been introduced before, including by Conservative governments. The case for a rethink grows stronger by the day”.

Oil and gas companies have made record profits during the energy crisis thanks to oil and gas prices soaring worldwide. During the first nine months of 2021, the largest companies made a combined $174bn (£132.8bn) in profits. Shell’s profits for the year totalled $19.3bn (£14.7bn).

Shell’s annual reports reveal this is the fourth consecutive year it has not paid UK tax on its oil and gas production in the North Sea, thanks to refunds for decommissioning platforms offsetting tax obligations. 

Since 2016, when then-chancellor George Osborne changed tax rules, oil companies have received bumper tax refunds for decommissioning oil projects, with Shell receiving annual payments of between $99m (£75.5m) and $141m (£107.6m) since 2017, when it paid $95m (£72m) in taxes. 

Shell’s largest decommissioning project is the Brent oil and gas field, which is made up of four oil platforms. 

Shell has been taxed for operations in other countries, with documentation revealing the oil giant paid $4.5bn (£3.4bn) in taxes, fees and production entitlements in Norway in 2021.

While countries such as Spain, Italy and Romania have implemented windfall taxes on oil and gas companies to ease the costs of energy for ordinary households, the UK government has repeatedly resisted calls to do the same.

Instead, consumers are now shouldering the burden of higher energy prices, with bills rising by up to 54 per cent this month as the energy price cap was raised. 

Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Spring Statement was widely condemned by poverty charities for failing to deal with the cost of living crisis. The Resolution Foundation warned the “poorly-targeted” package will push more than one million people into poverty as prices rise. 

Danny Gross, energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “Big oil and gas companies can’t go on raking in record profits and paying zero tax at the expense of people across the country, not when energy bills have jumped by 50 per cent and are expected to rise higher still later this year.

“People want to see the government proving it’s not at the whim of corporate greed. It must seize its upcoming energy review as an opportunity to introduce a Windfall Tax on profiteering fossil fuel giants.

Shell has been approached for comment.