Westminster

Latest

• Government no grasp of immigration
• ECHR fight just PM shadow boxing
• TA mustn't be our Toy Army
• Climate policy results in fuel poverty
• Defence strategy is 'worrying': Farage
• Teacher strike sends out wrong signal
• Watson knighthood 'an affront'
• Immigrant amnesty will only get worse
• Plans to go soft on rapists 'out of touch'

Climate policy results in fuel poverty

Thursday, 14th July 2011

Figures released by the Department for Energy and Climate Change showing an increase in the number of people in fuel poverty have drawn an angry response from UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom.

"It doesn't take a genius to work out that poorer people take the brunt of energy price rises.," the MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire said.

"Yet the news that millions of homes that have fallen into 'climate poverty' seem to have come as a surprise to the DECC. They have blamed higher prices on the market, but they forget that it is a market that the UK government has interfered with."
 
He went on: "It is a fact that global energy demand has been increasing, and that increased demand increases prices is basic economics – why did this simple fact not occur to the experts at DECC?
 
"Where markets have not been interfered with – the new shale gas sector in the USA, for instance – we see that prices are lower and stable. One thing is for sure – if the government acts on Chris Huhne's energy White Paper and continues with its  policies, energy prices will continue to rise, whatever the market does.
 
"Many Greens and UK politicians have claimed that these policies are necessary because 'climate change will be worse for the poor'. But while there is little evidence of climate change, there is overwhelming evidence that climate change policies have been worse for the poor".
 
"Climate policies have a very real human cost, counted in illness and misery amongst the weakest and most vulnerable in our society."

Back to Westminster