Miliband urged to save net zero through higher bills in the South
Ed Miliband must ramp up energy bills across London and southern England to hit net zero targets, a parliamentary committee has said.
The Energy Secretary is likely to miss his target of making the electricity grid 95pc carbon free by the end of the decade unless he embraces so-called zonal pricing, a new report from the Lords industry committee warned.
Such a change would mean splitting Britain's single electricity market into almost a dozen regions, with the price of power determined by supply and demand within each area rather than set nationally.
In practice, prices would surge in London, southern England and the Midlands where renewables are in short supply, but plummet in Scotland because of its plentiful wind farms.
The change would therefore be hugely controversial. However, it would encourage companies to build renewable power infrastructure nearer to where prices are high, cutting down the amount of new pylons, cables and transformers needed to achieve a decarbonised grid.
'Regional zonal pricing should enable better use of existing grid capacity and lower the cost of electricity, provided that the transition and its risks are managed well,' the report said.
Even with such changes, Mr Miliband's clean power by 2030 pledge looks increasingly likely to fail, the Lords warned.
Baroness Taylor of Bolton, the committee's chairman, said: 'Given the scale of changes needed to the planning, regulation and delivery of energy infrastructure, and the UK's historic [poor] record of delivering major infrastructure projects, our report questions the feasibility of meeting the clean power target.
'Time is already running out, and there is no room for complacency. The Government and the sector must ramp up their efforts to have a chance of success.'
Zonal pricing has been under consideration in the review of electricity market arrangements initiated by the previous government three years ago. An announcement is now imminent.
Government officials have advised Mr Miliband to press ahead with the policy, but the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Desnz) has refused to say if he favours the idea. Mr Miliband has insisted he will not make any change that leads to higher bills for people.
Regardless, the machinery for zonal pricing is already being put in place.
Ofgem recently announced plans for 11 'Regional Energy Strategy Boards'. Nine would be in England with one each in Scotland and Wales, all overseen by the National Energy System Operator (Neso).
The boards would be similar to the municipal electricity and gas boards that oversaw energy supplies before privatisation, comprising local councillors and energy company representatives.
Julian Leslie, Neso's chief engineer and director of strategic energy planning, said the boards would 'ensure that local communities play a central role in planning how they decarbonise and how their contributions support national strategic energy planning'.
Sam Richards, of Britain Remade, a pro-growth campaign group, said the UK needed a 'clean energy revolution to lower bills and create high-quality jobs'.
He added: 'Moving to zonal pricing is a crucial step in achieving this ... It would help make smarter use of our existing grid, bring down electricity costs and attract the investment needed to build clean energy where it's most abundant.'
A Desnz spokesman said: 'We need new infrastructure to protect family and national finances with energy security, through clean home-grown power we control.'
The three years of discussions around zonal pricing have generated growing tensions in the UK energy industry.
John Pettigrew, the National Grid chief executive, last month spoke out against it, warning the disruption would be a huge distraction. Hitachi, suppliers of half the transformers, inverters and switch gear vital to the UK's 'great grid upgrade', have issued similar warnings. Others are strongly in favour, including Greg Jackson, the Octopus Energy boss.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
We need better paid and fewer MPs rather than preening power-hungry mayors
It's that most dangerous of political schemes, a legacy moment. Sir Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London since 2016, is steam-rolling through his passion project to pedestrianise a large part of Oxford Street, a mile-long section of that ancient thoroughfare known in Roman times as Via Trinobantina. Once you could travel from Fishguard in Pembrokeshire to central London. Now, for the first time in some 1,500 years, your caravan, donkey or bike must stop at Marble Arch. At which point you can join a massive queue of traffic heading down Park Lane as taxis and buses on new, permanent diversion try to figure out how the hell to get to Tottenham Court Road. Sir Sadiq's renderings, his fantasy drawings doubtless etched at vast expense by one of a dozen architect firms commissioned to consult on this project, show a vast avenue of greenery. There are young trees in enormous plant pots and the old tarmac covered in triangles of different shades of green. And along this glorious, unpolluted thoroughfare walk Khan's happy, devoted people. Needless to say, moving down the street are the diverse multitude; men holding hands, people in wheelchairs and the blind. What is not rendered is the view of the surrounding streets, where it's a technical car park of buses, taxis, juggernauts and cyclists, the fuming hot air of the riders, drivers and passengers able to power a small city district. Yet here is Sir Sadiq's legacy. Not a reduction in knife crime nor an increase in arrests for burglary, but a dreamy, long walkway. Meanwhile, Soho, the area that could be successfully pedestrianised (if you insist on such things) becomes further blocked and clogged. Soho's alleyways and narrow streets, its cafes, restaurants and clubs would make a marvellous, local economy-generating island of wandering, mooching, dining and drinking. But no, it's the one straight road, a key artery of London through which buses and taxis and bicycles can freely flow (normal traffic having been banned during daylight hours and Saturdays since the 1970s) that is kiboshed. The opposition has been vociferous. Tim Lord, the chair of the Soho Society, says nothing came from the Mayor but a shoulder shrug when he raised concerns about 'the impact of moving 16 bus routes into narrow, congested one-way streets in Marylebone and Fitzrovia'. The Labour leader of Westminster city council has said, politely, that the plan 'was not the council's preferred outcome'. Yet Sir Sadiq says he's 'proud'. Indeed, releasing the results of a local consultation, he joked that he had received 'North Korean' levels of support from London, or from those who bothered to respond to his survey, doubtless hustled by the mayor's savvy electioneering team. Because the London Mayor appears to love power, and this is manifested in the mechanism that he has used to steamroll this process through, there is a magic lever in his office, deployed sparingly, (think, 'Break glass in case of emergency'), called the Mayoral Development Corporation (MDC). Originally developed to accelerate housebuilding after the Second World War, if you can argue the need for regeneration, it gives you the power to ignore local decisionmakers and accelerate your plans. Hence it being used, obviously, to implement the HS2 Crossrail intersection at Old Oak Common (where white elephant meets gazelle). Sir Sadiq revels in his power, imagining the high-fives he'll be getting from passersby as he sips his beloved flat white on his traffic-free Oxford Street. And quite why he loves Oxford Street is beyond me for, save the likes of Selfridges, it is actually, when it comes to retail brands, one of the grottiest streets in the capital. Perhaps he has a penchant for candy, the street being littered with those dodgy American-style sweet shops as well as homogenous global retail brands, the ubiquitous vape stores, not to mention the hoards of pickpockets and that new scourge, the electric bike-driven phone thieves. And if one makes the strange choice to shop on Sir Sadiq's Oxford Street of the future, how do you cope with lugging your purchases a mile up the road to the nearest bus stop? Yet Sir Sadiq's power-hungry zeal is not unique to London. We have become a nation in thrall to the powers of over-paid council officials. Reforms to local authorities over the decades have been what Sophie Stowers, of think tank More in Common calls, 'piecemeal [and] incoherent', so much so that most voters wishing to moan about a missing bin collection have no idea whether to moan to a councillor, local mayor, police and crime commissioner, metro mayor or MP. A letter of complaint, doubtless, being passed from one to another while they, eagerly, exercise what powers they have. And, as George Jones, emeritus professor of government at the LSE, has argued, this so-called innovation of George Osborne to introduce regional mayors concentrates power in a single person, which is 'unlikely to represent the diverse complexities of a large urban, metropolitan or county region area better than collective leadership'. There was the preening mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees (2016 to 2024) who paraded his plans for an unaffordable underground mass transit system, a £132 million refit for the Colston Hall music venue, and who flew to Vancouver to deliver a 14-minute Ted Talk on the climate crisis. The people of Bristol saw sense and in 2022 voted to replace the mayoral system with a committee. Or there's the power-mad mayor of Leicester, Sir Peter Soulsby. He called for the abolition of the city's chief executive, flouted the Covid lockdown by visiting his girlfriend (he publicly apologised later), has been linked to accusations of bullying, intimidation and harassment (he denied knowledge of such behaviour and said he would never condone such an approach) and has faced criticism for plans to demolish a central car park and replace it with a public square. One local described the plan as 'delusional, considering that it rains 178 days a year'.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Diversity policies improve the civil service
As a retired civil servant, I read your article with interest (Civil service is 'too remote' from people's lives across UK, says minister, 14 June). I am in favour of moving roles out of London, but simply moving locations is not enough without culture change. Civil servants come from a range of communities. Most are passionate about public service. But the hierarchy means that only those who are able and willing to play by unwritten rules (created by white, middle-class, non-disabled men for their own benefit) can climb the ladder; civil servants are encouraged to focus more on what will please senior leaders than on what will benefit communities; and the civil service often values grade and seniority over knowledge, experience and expertise. To provide the best public services the civil service needs to reflect, at all levels, the communities it serves. At present it doesn't, and diversity diminishes with seniority. The 'back-office function' of experienced equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) specialists is essential: to identify barriers to under-represented groups; to ensure a working environment where everyone can thrive; and to rewrite the hidden rules so that they work for everyone. Senior leaders (including ministers) need to value the experience and expertise of specialists at more junior grades. In 2008 I joined the Crown Prosecution Service as an equality, diversity and community engagement manager. As well as EDI issues, my role involved engaging with local communities to understand their needs and build confidence in the criminal justice system. Engaging with communities improves the service provided and encourages those from under-represented groups to consider joining the civil service. In this country, we have always referred to EDI. Those who advocate doing away with 'DEI' betray their slavish Trump AirsNewcastle upon Tyne Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
Australian senator who heckled King makes rude gesture at Buckingham Palace
An Australian senator who heckled the King has courted controversy again by making a rude gesture outside Buckingham Palace. Lidia Thorpe made headlines around the world last October when she interrupted a reception for the King and Queen during their visit to parliament house in Canberra, yelling 'f--- the colony', 'this is not your land' and 'you are not our King'. In London this week to attend a conference, the indigenous senator wore a 'blak sovereign movement' T-shirt and held up an Aboriginal flag outside the gates of the Palace. She posed for a photograph making a rude gesture with her middle finger, which she shared on social media with the caption: 'Dropped by to collect all the stuff this lot stole, but Charlie wasn't in.' The post sparked division among her followers, with some asking whether the UK visit was being funded as a work trip. One responded: 'Do you know you don't speak for Australia. We actually can't stand you – I personally look forward to your term ending in the Senate.' Ms Thorpe was censured by the Australian parliament last November, with a motion passed by 46 votes to 12. It condemned her actions as 'disruptive and disrespectful', but there were no further constitutional ramifications. The Senate said it no longer regarded it 'appropriate' for her to be a member of any delegation 'during the life of this parliament'. Anthony Albanese, the Australian prime minister, said Ms Thorpe's behaviour was not of the standard 'Australians rightly expect of parliamentarians'. But after the censure motion was passed, the senator said she did not 'give a damn' about it. She tore up the piece of paper while being interviewed by ABC TV, and said that she would use it 'as kindling'. She vowed to repeat her actions if the King and Queen ever returned to Australia, saying: 'If the colonising King were to come to my country again, our country, then I'll do it again. And I will keep doing it. I will resist colonisation in this country. 'I swear my allegiance to the real sovereigns of these lands: First Peoples are the real sovereigns,' she said. Moments before her protest, the King had delivered a speech in which he paid his 'respects to the traditional owners' of Australia. He was said to be 'unruffled' and determined not to let it spoil a 'wonderful day'.
