The government is running up huge bills on industrial interventions that fail to deliver good results. Its ill judged price control on domestic fuel led to the bankruptcy of a large number of suppliers without preventing a subsequent huge surge in the prices consumers have to pay. taxpayers are now going to be sent a big bill to make good the losses at Bulb, now under state ownership.
Many industries which need to burn a lot of gas and or use a lot electricity have faced 20% VAT, carbon taxes and the Emissions trading scheme. this has made energy a lot dearer to U.K. industry than in many foreign competitor countries. this has led to the need for some offsetting* energy subsidy to U.K. industry. this is normally less than is needed to allow the U.K. to be properly competitive but an effective reduction is some of the penal taxation.
I read that the government is now concerned about U.K. steel’s lack of competitive prices. Why doesn’t it simply remove the special taxes on manufacture? It is a nonsense to impose carbon taxes here to price us out of the market, only to import energy intensive products from elsewhere with added CO2 from all the transport.
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