To get to the bottom of British energy humiliation, we need a public inquiry.
The UK’s energy crisis has been a humiliating political event. It is the result of a series of policy failures and contradictions across parties that conspired to create a perfect storm.
A range of past energy ministers made grave errors, including
- Patricia Hewitt’s opposition in 2001 to nuclear power
- Ed Miliband’s refusal in 2009 to back new clean coal plants; Chris Huhne renewing opposition in 2012
- Ed Davey supporting new gas over wood pellets in 2013
- Amber Rudd supervised the end of carbon capture funding
- Greg Clark allowed the closure of the Rough gas storage in 2017
- Andrea Leadsom banning fracking in 2019
To name just a few.
A brief summary of some of the short-term mistakes and failures in recent years was made alongside the consistent and conscious run-down of reliable UK power generation. Over a third (or more) of the UK’s baseload electricity generation capacity was shut down between 2000 and 2017, in order to comply with EU regulations without any comparable net replacements.
Ministers instead approved weather-dependent renewables, more interconnectors for power import from the Continent, and offshoring of British jobs in energy, resilience, and security. The arrival of new nuclear is already twenty years late.
A judge-led public inquiry by judges is required in order to properly understand and provide a long-overdue analysis of this systemic policy failure. This will be in the national interest to both prevent future occurrences and identify key errors made by politicians, regulators, and senior civil servants.
Ex-premiers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May, as well as a long list (17 since 1997) of energy secretaries, should be called. They led governments that oversaw the reduction of British energy security and diversity, resilience, and security.
It is crucial to examine and expose how we got there and what decisions were made over that period. This represents one of the most serious failures in national policy since the war.
It has enormous implications for the economy and households, industry, future competitiveness, and society – as this winter will demonstrate.
The dangers of Britain’s energy supply were illustrated by the news in July when the National Grid had to panic-buy extremely expensive Belgian electricity. To prevent London from suffering blackouts due to rising power demand, the National Grid paid £9,724 per megawatt hour, more than 5,000% above the average price.
Backbenchers are encouraged to continue citing Russia or Ukraine as the cause of this avoidable energy crisis.
But the truth is far more disturbing, concerning, and much more personal. Years of ministerial dithering, combined with bad and conflicted planning from Whitehall and network managers, have created the perfect storm of high electricity costs, limited supplies, and insufficient power.
Years ago, the writing was on the board after the Blair, Brown, and Cameron governments’ decision to follow EU directives and close coal- and oil-fired power plants without clear policies for building cleaner replacements. Weather-dependent windmills or solar panels couldn’t fill the gap. After being first supported by Blair’s government in 2001, the EU’s power station directives forced the UK into closing key plants starting in 2012.
Ministers are trying desperately to preserve 50-year-old coal power plants at great cost. They also hope to be able to import more electricity from Europe at a high price. How did this happen? Only a thorough and legitimate public inquiry can uncover the truth, prevent future recurrences and provide better policies in the future.
Britain’s increasing dependence on imported power has been exposed by the emergency bid to Belgium. This has enormous implications for energy security and resilience, future bills, and climate change. It is time to stop building interconnectors, and instead prioritize reliable home-grown generation.
An inquiry by the public into Britain’s energy crisis will expose the dangerous and flawed doctrine of outdated targets and poor policy-making that has dominated British politics for generations. The public deserves to know the truth about soaring energy bills and the errors that have created a real danger of power rationing in winter and beyond.
Failure to implement an energy policy will cause great pain for households, industry, and the entire economy. It reduces investment and prevents job creation. This is the most important area of national policy and we need to understand why politicians failed.
