Time to swap this net-zero 'theatre' for a new script

CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves’s refusal to put a carbon tax on imported oil and gas is helping countries like Norway and the US get rich during the global energy crisis.

- Tim Newark

Yet, keeping net-zero taxes on British industry is making the UK poorer. This is utter hypocrisy from the Labour government and will help beggar us all.

As the Gulf crisis sends energy prices sky high, it’s a tragic irony that Britain does not in fact get much of its oil and gas via the underattack Strait of Hormuz.

Most of our imported energy comes from America and Norway in the form of crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The Chancellor doesn’t want to add to the cost-of-living crisis by slapping a carbon tax on these imports — but that means imported energy is getting a free ride compared with our own refineries, which face some of the highest electricity costs in Europe thanks to Ed Miliband’s suicidal obsession with net zero.

Scotland’s last oil refinery at Grangemouth closed last year while the Lindsey refinery in North Lincolnshire has now been mothballed.

As a result, Britain is becoming more and more dependent on imported oil and gas.

What sense does this make? How can it be more environmentally friendly to bring in energy by ship from abroad than drilling for new sources of fuels in our own North Sea?