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Government accused over electricity bills
Householders are paying more than £50 extra a year for electricity thanks to the Government's climate change policies, say campaigners.
Ministers' environmental initiatives are now making up 14 per cent of domestic electricity bills and three per cent of gas bills, according to the TaxPayers' Alliance and the Renewable Energy Foundation.
But the Government's "preoccupation" with "eye-catching" climate change policies has saved only small quantities of emissions, campaigners said yesterday. The TaxPayers' Alliance said the average domestic electricity bill for 2007/08 was 367, and 51.38 of this was the cost of climate change policies.
Families paid an average bill of 557 for gas in the same year – 16.71 of which was due to green initiatives.
This total extra energy cost of 68.09 per household will rise to 76.97 in 2008/09, they claimed.
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "These are tough times for ordinary families, and the Government's climate change measures are making life even more difficult.
"Not only are they a costly extra burden on household bills, but they are an expensive way of pursuing the Government's emissions targets."
The European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme is partly responsible for the increase.
The scheme puts a price on the pollution caused by electricity generators and heavy industry – increasing generation costs which feeds through to the customer.
Price rises are also due to the Government's Renewables Obligation, which forces electricity suppliers to source an increasing amount of energy from renewable sources.
The parliamentary business and enterprise committee has said the UK's energy markets are in urgent need of reform with gas and electricity bills set to rise "significantly" in the near future.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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