Who would have thought it? Ed Miliband actually created some headlines on Tuesday! Didn’t think he had it in him, but there we go, we can all be wrong!
He made headlines because he promised that if Labour won the next General Election he would freeze energy prices until the start of 2017. He also promised to scrap the “bedroom tax”, build 200,000 houses a year and even the Green Deal would go if Labour won power.
First to comment were the energy companies. They were the first to condemn the energy freeze promise saying that it would cost them £4.5bn, would put them under impossible economic conditions and that it simply wouldn’t work. But they need not fear – we all know that if they think Labour will win, a whole raft of price increases would be charged to offset that freeze before the tenants of Number 10 change!
Ed did also claim that the energy companies had actually been over charging a total of £3.9bn since 2010. Not quite sure where he got that research from, but it’s probably fairly accurate given the relentless price increases and ever increasing profit margins.
The downside to this plan is that Government would ruling over big business and the generally accepted commentary about this is that it does stifle productivity and profitability. I do tend to agree with this to a point, but how else would you try to reign in an energy industry in the UK that has had far too much power and not enough regulators with sharp enough teeth?
I do also want to focus on the claim the Green Deal would be scrapped under Labour. They claim that the scheme has been a disaster from start to finish and I will wholeheartedly agree! Two years before it went live the Government was told that it wouldn’t work, and yet here we are! Hundred of millions of pounds wasted, the cavity wall insulation sector in ruins, it’s no good for residential and now landlords are ditching it. Total utter waste of time and resources. ECO would also be going if Green Deal was scrapped according to Labour. But rather than just a scrapping, I really want to see what Ed would put in place of this. Pressure needs to be kept up to continue to improve the housing stock of the UK.
He pledges to get building 200,000 new homes a year. This is all well and good, but if they’re going to do that, ramp up the minimum standards for building in the UK to make sure that these extra homes are either very, very efficient or even carbon neutral. This Government passed up a great opportunity to really tighten the screw on Part L changes, but wilted under pressure.
Ed’s promises are quite grand and are one hell of a gamble, and will probably be left open to a lot of legal challenges. But, and this is a very big but, if he can pull these off, and providing they are paid for properly and not by borrowing more, they would be very good for the country.
I said on Twitter not so long ago that while Ed Miliband is in charge of Labour, I really could not vote for them. He made his speech pretty well. Very well I’d say. I’m what they would call an undecided voter, but I’m there to be persuaded by Labour, if they make the right sounds.
Next time: @DoubleGlazeHour suggests customers should sign off large jobs at stages.
