The high price of Britain’s misguided energy policy

Britain’s energy policy is a mess. We have the highest energy prices in the developed world, which is damaging competitiveness, crippling our economy and accelerating the decline of our industries. This is not just economically illiterate, but also environmentally counterproductive and socially regressive.

The drive to reduce carbon emissions produced by the UK may seem noble but it is an organised hypocrisy. We import goods produced elsewhere by nations far less scrupulous about their energy sources and end up off-shoring our emissions, and indeed jobs. Our domestic production of carbon looks lower on paper but our overall consumption remains the same – and the impact on global climate is nugatory at best.

Worse, the means by which we reduce our own emissions – importing solar panels an