Reacting to the chancellor’s spring statement Dr Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK said:
Right now millions of people are paying through the nose to heat homes which are so poorly insulated the warmth shoots right outside. Cutting VAT on insulation, solar panels and heat pumps is a welcome start to ending that huge waste of energy, helping keep bills down and cut our gas use. But if the chancellor’s serious about tackling the issue then it can only be the start. We need to see around £10bn of support, part raised by a windfall tax on oil and gas companies, for delivering the help families need to install the clean technologies that will get us off gas. That should include finally fulfilling the full Conservatives manifesto pledge of £9.2bn towards energy efficiency, with more support grants available and greater backing to help the industry train up and deploy the tens of thousands of jobs this area offers.
Commenting on the cut to fuel duty:
As expected the chancellor has reached for the lever marked ‘fuel duty’ and hopes for an impact on the cost of living crisis. The seriousness of the moment needs bigger thinking.
A fuel duty cut gives more money back to the driver of an expensive gas-guzzling SUV than the average punter. It doesn’t provide much help at all to the poorest fifth of the population, over half of whom don’t even have a car. At a time when the UK needs to slash oil from all sources for security purposes, the chancellor should only cut fuel duty if he can make an equivalent cut to the costs of public transport which offers real support for those facing this cost of living crisis.
