Labour MPs have called on Sir Keir Starmer to reduce net zero taxes on oil and gas producers or risk destroying thousands of jobs in their constituencies.
The MPs say that producers are at risk of being moved to other countries to escape carbon taxes imposed by the UK and EU.
Their demand is a significant push back against Downing Street’s plan to reach net zero by 2030 by making it more expensive to produce energy from fossil fuels, which is becoming increasingly unpopular with voters.
A new report from the Commission for Carbon Competitiveness, which is chaired by a Labour MP, said that the UK should create more exemptions to carbon taxes for British companies.
The whole point of the exercise is to make using fossil fuels more expensive. Complaining that it makes using fossil fuels more expensive therefore doesn;t really work. That’s the point, you know?
But then Labour MPs.
Yes, yes, I know, carbon taxes etc. But that’s why the c tax should only be at that cost, the social cost of carbon. That is, lower than the environmental taxes we already charge ourselves. As I’ve been pointing out for decades the total tax is more than high enough laready. It’s just badly distributed.
“the c tax should only be at that cost, the social cost of carbon”
What is this “social cost of carbon” of which you speak? How is it defined? By whom? On the basis of what information? And how is it balanced against the social benefit of carbon?
1200 pages of joy. Have at it. https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/the-economics-of-climate-change-the-stern-review/
“social cost of carbon”.
What is the ‘social cost’ of the 97% of Carbon Dioxide emissions that are natural?
Far too many supposedly smart people are still drinking the Kool-Aid*.
*Pendent alert: Jim Jones got them to drink Flavor-Aid. Grape flavour.
The whole point of the exercise is to make using fossil fuels more expensive.
You really think that, Tim? Economists eh?
I’d say the point of the exercise is to raise revenue to buy votes. It just happens to be where the government of the day is raising revenue.
That fool Hunt Laffer curved the oil and gas industry by increasing the Windfall Tax for revenue raising reasons.
That complete twat Milliband has now driven them out of business for ideological reasons.
Man made climate change on a macro level is a lie.
Those who believe in it are fools.
That is a hill upon which I shall die, probably of thirst and heat exhaustion.
I’m pleased to see that self-interest is finally having an effect on the climate nonsense even in the UK.
Now if only it’d happen in Oz as well!!!
It’s the carbon credits that are a scandal.
Ofgem won’t issue more of them ‘cos they’re committed to net zero. Difficult to just cancel the whole farrago because people that have bought the credits based on being told the supply would keep diminishing have got a contract.
MPs shooting at CO2 taxation is akin to friendly fire.
The point is this government and civil service is fucking retarded.
We have a minister for net zero or some bollocks.
And apparently we have a commissioner for carbon competitiveness.
These two positions are fundamentally at odds.
It’s such a waste of money, time and effort.
Get rid of both of them
More innumeracy from today’s telegraph:-
Workers also face paying more in tax even without any additional rises in the Budget, if Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, chooses to maintain the freeze on income tax thresholds further than 2027-28.
Keeping the threshold for the additional rate of income tax frozen at £125,140 for a further five years would push the number of workers paying the levy to 8.66 million, according to figures from wealth manager Quilter, seen by The Telegraph.
It would mean around one in six earners would fall into the top tax bracket, up from just one in 33 today.
The claim that approaching 9 million UK workers will have income in excess of £125k seems unlikely (although public sector unions and profligate chancellors will do their best to prove me wrong) . The x6 extrapolation of this figure to nearly 52 million taxpayers is absurd.
@ John
Many workers expect rises in nominal wages each year to compensate for debasement of the currency (“inflation”). Since all the increase will be taxed at their marginal rate (tax and NI threshholds are frozen), the %age increase in nominal wages has to be greater than the %age increase in CPI just to maintain their spending power. This tends to cause inflation to accelerate
@john77: I’d never thought about it that way before: that taxation can be a cause of inflation. Bad news for the Richard Murphy-ists who believe that any inflation caused by government borrowing or money-printing can be tamed by taxation.
I think 1,200 pages of the Stern review fell on Timmy’s head when he was a baby. He’s never been quite right since.
Tim, that’s 1200 words of Stanley Unwin. I’m talking about the real thing. What is this “social cost of carbon”? We know what the social benefit is: for one thing, we’re alive to enjoy it. Most of us wouldn’t be, without the “social cost of carbon”.
“As I’ve been pointing out for decades ”
And you’re still wrong.
@ Paul, Somerset
Rachel from Customer Complaints has her fingers in her ears – that is exactly what increasing employer’s NI will do (some of the effect will be to bankrupt small businesses where there is ample competition, but where there is little local competition, prices will rise to cover the cost). The ratchet effect from inflation-linked pay rises is something that anyone who survived the Wilson-Healey years will/should know but for the younger generation it has not *yet* been noticeable.
Rachel has chosen not to notice the level of complaints addressed to HMRC – there seems to be a three-month waiting list for replies.
J77, I’ve just had lunch with a client who runs a company of half a dozen, who is building a garden office in order to dispense with the rented one. She’s transforming from being an employer of young people to a freelance co-ordinator of freelance consultants.
This has been caused directly by 1) having become sick and tired of having to train clueless, entitled young graduates in the world of work, and 2) the direct increase Reeves, Miliband and their deluded chums have caused in her costs of employment and operations, which are essentially unrecoupable in present economic circumstances.
This is going to cause Rachel to lose tax take. Now multiply it across uncountable numbers of small companies.
It’s the carbon credits that are a scandal.
Ofgem won’t issue more of them ‘cos they’re committed to net zero. Difficult to just cancel the whole farrago because people that have bought the credits based on being told the supply would keep diminishing have got a contract.
A similar argument was made for protecting black cab licences in London and yellow cab medallions in New York and there was some serious money involved in NY.
I have more sympathy for London cabbies than speculators is carbon credits and that is SQRT(fuck all)
‘A new report from the Commission for Carbon Competitiveness’
The WHAT? Who is competing with whom? For what?
. . . win stupid prizes.
bloke in spain said:
“I’d say the point of the exercise is to raise revenue to buy votes. It just happens to be where the government of the day is raising revenue.”
Yup, I think BiS is right.
Sure, there’s a few fanatics (Miliband?) who want carbon taxes to reduce CO2 emissions, but most of the politicians just like ‘environmental taxes’ because they raise money and (and this bit’s important) they think they raise money without voter opposition, because they think we’ve all bought into the global warming thing.
But I think they’re going to get a surprise; my impression is that, not only are more people unimpressed by the global warming scare, but they’re not even bothering to pretend to be any more.
@tim
I always the Stern report to be High Blair Pants. Like “the case against Iraq” but much less nasty in its consequences.