Rishi Sunak confirms he’s delaying ban on new petrol and diesel cars and boosts boiler upgrade scheme
Rishi Sunak has confirmed he will be easing a series of green policies under a “new approach” designed to protect “hard-pressed British families” from “unacceptable costs”.
Delivering a speech from Downing Street, he said he is still committed to reaching net zero by 2050, but the transition can be done in a “fairer and better way”.
Announcing a raft of U-turns, the prime minister confirmed he will delay a ban on the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by five years and a weakening of targets to phase out gas boilers.
He also said a “worrying set of proposals” that had emerged during debates on net zero would be scrapped, including:
- For government to interfere in how many passengers you can have in your car
- To force you to have seven different bins in your home
- To make you change your diet and harm British farmers by taxing meat
- To create new taxes to discourage flying or going on holiday
“Our destiny can be of our own choosing,” Mr Sunak said – while calling for politicians to be “honest” about the costs of green policies on families.
Politics live: Rishi Sunak gives speech from Downing Street
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘No rights to impose costs on people’
The measures have faced criticism from across the political spectrum as well as from businesses, environmental groups and even former US vice president Al Gore.
Labour accused the prime minister of “dancing to the tune” of net zero-sceptic Tories and said the plans would actually add more costs to households while damaging investor confidence.
Explaining the government’s decision to delay the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars – currently due in 2030 – by five years, Mr Sunak said this would give businesses “more time to prepare”.
He also said people would still be allowed to buy secondhand diesel and petrol cars after that date and this would align the UK’s approach with countries across Europe, Canada and many US states.
In weakening the plan to phase out gas boilers from 2035, Mr Sunak said households would “never” be forced to “rip-out their existing boiler and replace it with a heat pump”.
This will only be required when people are due to change their boiler anyway and there will be an exception for households for whom that will be the hardest.
Mr Sunak also announced an increase to the boiler upgrade scheme, saying rather than banning boilers “before people can afford the alternative” the government is going to “support them to make the switch” to heat pumps.
He said: “The boiler upgrade scheme which gives people cash grants to upgrade their boiler will be increased by 50% to seven and a half thousand pounds.
“There are no strings attached. The money will never need to be repaid.”
Landlord efficiency targets scrapped
Mr Sunak has also scrapped plans to force landlords to upgrade the energy efficiency of their properties, saying some property owners would have been forced to “make expensive upgrades” within two years and that would inevitably impact renters.
“You could be looking at a bill of £8,000, and even if you’re only renting, you’re more than likely to see some of that passed on in higher rents,” he said.
“That’s just wrong, so those plans will be scrapped.”
Despite the “new approach”, the prime minister insisted the UK would meet its international obligations on climate change – such as those made under the Paris Climate Accords.
He went on to defend the UK’s record, arguing the country is “so far ahead” of other countries in the world when it comes to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
PM wants to portray himself as a leader prepared to take unpopular decisions his predecessors weren’t
For all the rhetoric about democracy and real political change – today’s speech was fundamentally about the Prime Minister giving into the concerns of many in his party about the costs of the green policies set out by Boris Johnson’s government.
Labour see these announcements as projecting fundamental political weakness: 20 points behind in the polls and struggling to meet the majority of his five pledges, Rishi Sunak urgently needs to find a way to connect with voters struggling during the cost of living crisis. He’s keen to win over the right wing Tory backbenchers concerned about the electoral danger of expensive environmental policies like the ULEZ expansion which was widely seen to have cost Labour the Uxbridge by election.
It’s an impression underlined by the hurried way the announcement was made – less than 24 hours after these controversial change in tack was leaked to the media, prompting a huge backlash from business and many in his own party. Making such a key speech in the Downing Street media briefing room – rather than to Parliament, also looks chaotic.
It’s sent the Speaker into a fury, earning a humiliating rebuke. “Ministers are answerable to MPs – we do not have a presidential system here,” Sir Lindsey Hoyle thundered. For a man like Mr Sunak, who prides himself on being a sensible pragmatist – the complete opposite to the cavalier Boris Johnson – it’s surely a criticism that will sting, though it’s hardly unexpected.
The irony is that Rishi Sunak opened his speech by pledging to put the long term interests of the country before the short term political needs of the moment. Climate campaigners, for whom nothing could be more urgent, will surely scoff at this.
But in the framing of his speech – as the first of a series of long term policy decisions in a ‘new kind of politics’ – the Prime Minister and his team are keen to burnish his reputation as a pragmatic reformer, prepared to take the kind of unpopular decisions his predecessors weren’t. Certainly many in his party have been calling for a change in approach, a new bolder strategy to set out a greater distance with Labour – and it seems he has been listening.
The PM’s key arguments – that government shouldn’t impose unnecessary or heavy handed costs on hard working people, and relying on the market to drive change – are a return to classic Conservatism.
But his core argument that the need for action is less urgent than we have previously been led to believe, because of the UK’s success in meeting existing climate targets – is not one which will sit easily with green minded MPs.
And while he spent a key part of the speech concentrating on the importance of green technological innovation, and celebrating the power of the market in delivering progress – that will surely stick in the throat of companies who’ve spent billions getting ready to meet targets which have now been delayed. Many in his own party are concerned about the reputational damage to the UK as a centre of business investment.
He’s well aware that today’s message will be deeply unpopular with some – but promised to ‘meet any resistance’. Many Tory MPs will welcome that more bullish approach; but his promise to deliver ‘pragmatism and not ideology’ is pure Sunak.
The question now is in the hands of voters – do they buy into this argument that the country can reach Net Zero by 2050 without many of the policies designed to get there? Or in the midst of the cost of living crisis – will they be delighted to avoid the cost of paying for them?
‘Act of weakness’
Among the critics, Ed Miliband, Labour’s Shadow Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary, said: “Today is an act of weakness from a desperate, directionless prime minister, dancing to the tune of a small minority of his party. Liz Truss crashed the economy and Rishi Sunak is trashing our economic future.
“Having delivered the worst cost of living crisis in generations, the prime minister today loads more costs onto the British people.”
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: “This is a prime minister who simply doesn’t understand and cannot grasp for Britain the opportunities for jobs and our economy of driving forward with action on clean energy.”
There was also criticism from the car industry and energy industry.
Chis Norbury, the chief executive of the E.ON energy firm, said it was a “false argument” that green policies can only come at a cost, arguing they deliver affordable energy while boosting jobs.
He said companies wanting to invest in the UK need “long-term certainty” while communities now risk being condemned to “many more years of living in cold and draughty homes that are expensive to heat”.
Ford cars UK chairwoman Lisa Brankin said: “Our business needs three things from the UK Government: ambition, commitment and consistency. A relaxation of 2030 would undermine all three.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Rishi Sunak is asked if his net zero policy climbdowns are a result of him panicking about the next election.
Tory MPs split
The announcement comes after last night’s leak of the plans sparked a major Tory backlash and even a threat of a no confidence letter.
Mr Sunak was due to give the speech later this week but brought it forward following a hastily arranged cabinet meeting this morning.
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle reacted furiously to the announcement not being made to MPs, who are on recess for conferences, expressing his views “in the strongest terms” in a letter to Mr Sunak.
Tory MPs are split, with some seeing the row back on costly green policies as a vote winner and others fearing the impact it will have on business and the climate.
Senior figures who have backed the prime minister include his predecessor Liz Truss, who said: “I welcome the delay on banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars as well as the delay on the ban on oil and gas boilers. This is particularly important for rural areas.”
Read more:
Braverman: ‘Bankrupting Britons won’t save planet’
Sunak’s messaging suggests net zero is negotiable
What could be scrapped from net zero pledges?
However Boris Johnson, who Ms Truss briefly took over from, said the row back would cause uncertainty for businesses, adding: “We cannot afford to falter now or in any way lose our ambition for this country.”
Mr Johnson’s ally and prominent Tory environmentalist Lord Zac Goldsmith went as far as to demand a general election over the “economically and ecologically illiterate decision”.
The UK’s commitment to reach net zero by 2050 was written into law in 2019.
Climate scientists say urgent cuts are needed to the world’s greenhouse gas emissions if we are to stop temperatures rising to a potentially catastrophic extent.
In the summer, scientists warned extreme heat events were rapidly on the rise due to climate change.
Unwary travellers returning from the EU risk having their sandwiches and local delicacies, such as cheese, confiscated as they enter the UK.
The luggage in which they are carrying their goodies may also be seized and destroyed – and if Border Force catch them trying to smuggle meat or dairy products without a declaration, they could face criminal charges.
The new jeopardy has come about because last weekend, the government quietly “extended” its “ban on personal meat imports to protect farmers from foot and mouth”.
This may or may not be bureaucratic over-reaction.
It’s certainly just another of the barriers EU and UK authorities are busily throwing up between each other and their citizens – at a time when political leaders keep saying the two sides should be drawing together in the face of Donald Trump’s attacks on European trade and security.
Keir Starmer’s been embarking on a reset with European leaders. Pic: Reuters
The ban on bringing back “cattle, sheep, goat, and pig meat, as well as dairy products, from EU countries into Great Britain for personal use” is meant “to protect the health of British livestock, the security of farmers, and the UK’s food security.”
There are bitter memories of previous outbreaks of foot and mouth disease in this country, in 1967 and 2001.
In 2001, there were more than 2,000 confirmed cases of infection resulting in six million sheep and cattle being destroyed. Footpaths were closed across the nation and the general election had to be delayed.
In the EU this year, there have been five cases confirmed in Slovakia and four in Hungary. There was a single outbreak in Germany in January, though Defra, the UK agriculture department, says that’s “no longer significant”.
The UK imposed bans on personal meat and dairy imports from those countries, and Austria, earlier this year.
Authorities carry disinfectant near a farm in Dunakiliti, Hungary. Pic: Reuters
Better safe than sorry?
None of the cases of infection are in the three most popular countries for UK visitors – Spain, France, and Italy – now joining the ban. Places from which travellers are most likely to bring back a bit of cheese, salami, or chorizo.
Could the government be putting on a show to farmers that it’s on their side at the price of the public’s inconvenience, when its own measures on inheritance tax and failure to match lost EU subsidies are really doing the farming community harm?
Many will say it’s better to be safe than sorry, but the question remains whether the ban is proportionate or even well targeted on likely sources of infection.
Read more: The products you can’t bring into Britain from the EU
No more gourmet chorizo brought back from Spain for you. File pic: iStock
A ‘Brexit benefit’? Don’t be fooled
The EU has already introduced emergency measures to contain the disease where it has been found. Several thousand cattle in Hungary and Slovenia have been vaccinated or destroyed.
The UK’s ability to impose the ban is not “a benefit of Brexit”. Member nations including the UK were perfectly able to ban the movement of animals and animal products during the “mad cow disease” outbreak in the 1990s, much to the annoyance of the British government of the day.
Since leaving the EU, England, Scotland and Wales are no longer under EU veterinary regulation.
Northern Ireland still is because of its open border with the Republic. The latest ban does not cover people coming into Northern Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, or the Isle of Man.
Rather than introducing further red tape of its own, the British government is supposed to be seeking closer “alignment” with the EU on animal and vegetable trade – SPS or “sanitary and phytosanitary” measures, in the jargon.
A ban on cheese? That’s anything but cracking. Pic: iStock
UK can’t shake ties to EU
The reasons for this are obvious and potentially make or break for food producers in this country.
The EU is the recipient of 67% of UK agri-food exports, even though this has declined by more than 5% since Brexit.
The introduction of full, cumbersome, SPS checks has been delayed five times but are due to come in this October. The government estimates the cost to the industry will be £330m, food producers say it will be more like £2bn.
With Brexit, the UK became a “third country” to the EU, just like the US or China or any other nation. The UK’s ties to the European bloc, however, are much greater.
Half of the UK’s imports come from the EU and 41% of its exports go there. The US is the UK’s single largest national trading partner, but still only accounts for around 17% of trade, in or out.
The difference in the statistics for travellers are even starker – 77% of trips abroad from the UK, for business, leisure or personal reasons, are to EU countries. That is 66.7 million visits a year, compared to 4.5 million or 5% to the US.
And that was in 2023, before Donald Trump and JD Vance’s hostile words and actions put foreign visitors off.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Trump: ‘Europe is free-loading’
More bureaucratic botheration
Meanwhile, the UK and the EU are making travel between them more bothersome for their citizens and businesses.
This October, the EU’s much-delayed EES or Entry Exit System is due to come into force. Every foreigner will be required to provide biometric information – including fingerprints and scans – every time they enter or leave the Schengen area.
From October next year, visitors from countries including the UK will have to be authorised in advance by ETIAS, the European Travel and Authorisation System. Applications will cost seven euros and will be valid for three years.
Since the beginning of this month, European visitors to the UK have been subject to similar reciprocal measures. They must apply for an ETA, an Electronic Travel Authorisation. This lasts for two years or until a passport expires and costs £16.
The days of freedom of movement for people, goods, and services between the UK and its neighbours are long gone.
The British economy has lost out and British citizens and businesses suffer from greater bureaucratic botheration.
Nor has immigration into the UK gone down since leaving the EU. The numbers have actually gone up, with people from Commonwealth countries, including India, Pakistan and Nigeria, more than compensating for EU citizens who used to come and go.
Editor’s note: Hands off my focaccia sandwiches with prosciutto! Pic: iStock
Will European reset pay off?
The government is talking loudly about the possible benefits of a trade “deal” with Trump’s America.
Meanwhile, minister Nick Thomas Symonds and the civil servant Mike Ellam are engaged in low-profile negotiations with Europe – which could be of far greater economic and social significance.
The public will have to wait to see what progress is being made at least until the first-ever EU-UK summit, due to take place on 19 May this year.
Hard-pressed British food producers and travellers – not to mention young people shut out of educational opportunities in Europe – can only hope that Sir Keir Starmer considers their interests as positively as he does sucking up to the Trump administration.
The ripping up of the trade rule book caused by President Trump’s tariffs will slow economic growth in some countries, but not cause a global recession, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.
There will be “notable” markdowns to growth forecasts, according to the financial organisation’s managing director Kristalina Georgieva in her curtain raiser speech at the IMF’s spring meeting in Washington.
Some nations will also see higher inflation as a result of the taxes Mr Trump has placed on imports to the US. At the same time, the European Central Bank said it anticipated less inflation from tariffs.
Money: Chef on a classic he’ll never order
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Trump’s tariffs: What you need to know
Earlier this month, a flat rate of 10% was placed on all imports, while additional levies from certain countries were paused for 90 days. Car parts, steel and aluminium are, however, still subject to a 25% tax when they arrive in the US.
This has meant the “reboot of the global trading system”, Ms Georgieva said. “Trade policy uncertainty is literally off the charts.”
The confusion over why nations were slapped with their specific tariffs, the stop-start nature of the taxes, and the rapid escalation of the tit-for-tat levies between the US and China sparked uncertainty and financial market turbulence.
“The longer uncertainty persists, the larger the cost,” Ms Georgieva cautioned.
“Unusual” activity in currency and government debt markets – as investors sold off dollars and US government debt – “should be taken as a warning”, she added.
“Everyone suffers if financial conditions worsen.”
Read more:
Sainsburys profits top £1bn after closing all cafes and cutting 3,000 jobs
Predators eye bargain deal for struggling discount retailer Poundland
These challenges are being borne out from a “weaker starting position” as public debt levels are much higher in recent years due to spending during the COVID-19 pandemic and higher interest rates, which increased the cost of borrowing.
The trade tensions are “to a large extent” a result of “an erosion of trust”, Ms Georgieva said.
This erosion, coupled with jobs moving overseas, and concerns over national security and domestic production, has left us in a world where “industry gets more attention than the service sector” and “where national interests tower over global concerns,” she added.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway