We can cut people’s energy bills by 20% says Shadow Energy Secretary

THE Conservatives would cut people’s energy bills by 20% by removing green taxes, according to Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho.

She told GB News: “I think part of the reason that her situation is difficult because she’s let inflation run out of control, and her borrowing costs have been very high. So before we go to the taxpayer and ask for a big subsidy, because what it looks like they’re going to do is subsidies for people who are on welfare, but we know the taxpayers are already hard-pressed.

“We’ve set out plans, a cheap power plan, which would cut everyone’s electricity bills by 20% and it wouldn’t cost the taxpayer a penny. We’d be taking off green taxes and levies and actually reducing the cost of people’s energy. And that should be the first port of call.

“We know people have been taxed to the hilt, and people are very, very squeezed at the moment. So before you go to the taxpayer again, I think we should be looking at cutting all costs.

“We can take out the fuel duty hike they’re planning for the autumn and take out that 20% of costs on people’s electricity bills from those green taxes and levies.”

She disputed Ed Miliband’s claim that drilling for more oil and gas in the North Seas would not affect prices: “Well, firstly, it will make a difference to the cost of living. He’s flat out wrong. There’s £25 billion of tax revenues that we could be getting from the North Sea that the Labour Party are getting from ordinary people.

“We know they’re taxing pensioners, students, ordinary people on incomes of £30,000. These are all people who are paying higher taxes under the Labour Party, and instead of getting the taxes from them, we could be getting it from a thriving North Sea.

“There’s also an important point, which is raising costs across the economy as well. The borrowing costs that Rachel Reeves is having to pay because she is not earning enough and she is borrowing too much, so shutting down our own industry so that we import more gas from abroad with higher emissions, sending billions of pounds to places like Norway or Qatar or the US instead of using our own resources in the North Sea, is completely mad.

“It is sheer lunacy in a gas crisis, and that’s why we’re forcing a vote today in Parliament to say Labour have to take out their punitive approach to the North Sea, the taxes, the ban on new licenses, the fact that you’ve got new projects just sat on it at Miliband’s desk waiting for sign off, when you could be getting some of those projects up and running in time for Christmas, supplying our own gas, providing us with tax revenue, providing us with jobs.

“It’s completely mad, and they have to change course.”