Burnham’s VAT cut is robbing Peter to pay Paul… why do Labour refuse to tackle policies that make energy so expensive?

ANDY BURNHAM is right about one thing. Energy bills are too high. With his VAT cut on energy, Andy Burnham is treating a symptom while leaving the disease to spread Credit: AP Labour is doing nothing about the green levies, the carbon taxes, the endless regulation and the ideological obsession with Net Zero that have helped drive energy prices ever higher Credit: Alamy I’ve been saying that for years. That’s why we’ve already called for VAT to be scrapped on household energy bills. So I’m not going to criticise him for finally catching up with me by cutting VAT from electricity bills. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! But let’s not pretend this is the answer to Britain’s energy crisis. Because Andy Burnham is treating a symptom while leaving the disease to spread. A VAT cut helps, but it does nothing to reduce the underlying cost of producing energy. Labour leaves intact the green levies, the carbon taxes, the endless regulation and the ideological obsession with Net Zero that have helped drive prices ever higher. The expensive bit of the bill stays exactly where it is. Working people aren’t stupid. Most read in The Sun They know the difference between ­making something genuinely cheaper and simply masking the cost by making other taxpayers pay for it. The biggest problem for Andy Burnham is that his sums already look as dodgy as his dance moves. He claims this VAT cut will be paid for by scrapping Labour’s Digital ID scheme. He’s right to scrap that stupid scheme. But Darren Jones’s intervention blows a hole in Burnham’s funding claim. Jones should know. Until yesterday, he was the minister responsible for the very programme Burnham now says will pay for this policy. His verdict was devastating. The Digital ID programme was “unfunded”, and the Government will have to explain at the Budget how it intends to pay for these new promises. If the minister who ran the scheme says the money isn’t there, why should anyone else believe it is? That raises an obvious question. Where is the money coming from? You can’t spend money you haven’t found. So either Labour borrows more, cuts spending elsewhere — pigs might fly — or, as working people have learned to expect, puts taxes up. Burnham’s funding claim has been rocked by Darren Jones, who revealed the Digital ID scheme was ‘unfunded’ Credit: Getty The biggest problem for Andy Burnham is that his sums already look as dodgy as his dance moves Credit: Getty This is classic Labour. Rob Peter to pay Paul. Offer a tax cut today, then ask working people to pay for it somewhere else tomorrow. And here’s the extraordinary thing. Even while looking for new ways to pay for expensive energy, Labour still refuses to tackle the policies making energy so costly in the first place. Andy Burnham’s new Energy Secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, wants to move even faster towards Labour’s Net Zero agenda. She’s argued for bringing the target ­forward by 16 YEARS. We’d abolish it. At exactly the moment we all need cheaper, more reliable energy, Labour’s instinct is to double down on the very policies pushing costs higher. Meanwhile, Burnham’s Deputy Lucy Powell (this is the same person, by the way, who said those who complained about grooming gangs were issuing “dog whistles” and Keir Starmer was right to cut winter fuel payments to avoid “a run on the Pound”) has made clear that ­Labour is sticking to its manifesto ­commitment not to issue any new North Sea oil and gas licences. Yes, they may finally approve Jackdaw and, hopefully, Rosebank because those projects were already in the pipeline. They should get on with it. But approving existing projects is not enough. Britain needs to produce more of its own energy. We need energy independence, not more Net Zero dogma. British gas is cleaner than imported ­liquefied natural gas — which is chilled to liquid form so it can be shipped across oceans. This requires a lot of energy to cool, transport via large ships then turn back into a gas. British gas supports tens of thousands of skilled jobs. It strengthens our energy ­security, our economic security and our national ­security. And it provides extra tax revenue that we would use to help keep prices down. Only Labour could believe it makes sense to import more energy from abroad while refusing to produce more at home. Burnham’s new Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh wants to bring forward Labour’s Net Zero target by 16 years Credit: Alamy Lucy Powell has made clear that ­Labour is sticking to its manifesto ­commitment not to issue any new North Sea oil and gas licences Credit: Getty My new Conservative Party would take a completely different approach. Our Cheap Power Plan doesn’t paper over the cracks. It fixes the problem. Yes, we would scrap VAT on household energy bills — not just electricity. And we would strip away the hidden Net Zero costs loaded on to families and businesses, back British oil and gas instead of blocking it, and accelerate nuclear power. It’s time to get Britain drilling again. We’d sweep away planning rules that stop cheaper energy being built. And we’d stop treating cheap, abundant energy as something to apologise for. That means genuinely lower bills because the cost of energy comes down. Not because the Treasury quietly sends you the bill another way. There are two very different visions on offer. Labour’s answer is to keep the expensive Net Zero model and hope taxpayers can keep footing the bill. Our answer is to make energy cheaper in the first place. Working people don’t want clever accounting. They don’t want today’s tax cut to become tomorrow’s tax rise. They want energy that is abundant, cheap and produced here in Britain. They want £200 off their bills because energy is genuinely cheaper. That’s exactly what our Cheap Power Plan will deliver. Comment now