Government hit by solar panel subsidy ruling

The Government has lost a bid to appeal to the UK’s highest court over its plans to cut subsidies for solar panels on homes.

By The Newsroom

Published 24th Mar 2012, 06:00 BST

In January three Court of Appeal judges unanimously upheld an earlier High Court ruling that the Energy Secretary lacks the power to introduce the controversial “retrospective” scheme.

After the decision by the appeal judges the then-Energy Secretary Chris Huhne announced that he would seek to appeal to the Supreme Court.

However, the Supreme Court yesterday refused the Government permission to appeal, announcing that the application “does not raise an arguable point of law of general public importance which ought to be considered by the Supreme Court at this time”.

The Government wants to lower feed-in tariff subsidies (FITs) to those that generate green electricity through solar panels – on installations completed after December 12 last year.