The Queen of England speaks: Full speed ahead with carbon tax and additional household debt

This video was posted on Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 and filed under Headlines, Videos.

Queen Elizabeth spoke to the house and clearly stated the upcoming new energy bill which will be an additional burden on the average household and midsize business.

What it contains is new laws households must abide by and the genius move as usual is the invitation to borrow money from green investment banks (wonder who runs those).

In other words: The citizens of the U.K. are going to be pushed into eco-slavery so to speak and given the carrot of loans. Deeper in debt and with new laws it will be easier to push down the middle class further. Brits usually are not easy to brainwash by the media, not as easy as Americans, but their sense of loyalty to royalty will ensure compliance by the general public and not likely is opposition going to be given a voice within the channels in which freedom is supposed to be transcended.

Householders will be entitled to borrow money from a green investment bank to pay for carbon-reducing measures
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guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 May 2010 09.12 BST

Householders will be able to borrow money to make their houses greener, including installing insulation. Photograph: Home Heat Helpline/PA

The new coalition government promised a raft of green initiatives in yesterday’s Queen’s speech that will see a radical overhaul of the country’s housing stock and loans to allow more households to invest in measures such as solar panels.

Promising a new energy bill in the next parliament, the new government, led by David Cameron, wants to create a green investment bank that would loan individual households the money to invest in carbon-reducing measures, including insulation.

The plan, which builds on the one announced by the outgoing Labour government in its last budget, is called a “pay-as-you-save” approach. The idea is that households borrowing money to make their home greener would repay the loan using money saved through lower energy bills. Labour originally wanted to create a £2bn fund to which households hoping to access money would apply. The private sector was expected to come up with a similar amount.

The new government hasn’t said exactly how it will work. In the past, the Tories previously promised £6,500 for each home, and the Lib Dems suggested up to £10,000 could be available. These figures may have to be revised upwards as a typical electricity generating solar scheme costs about £15,000, although these amounts would allow householders to invest in cheaper solar water heaters, or a range of insulation measures.

The new energy bill may also contain measures to:

• Require energy companies to provide more information on energy bills in order to empower consumers and to ensure fair access to energy supplies.

• Regulate the carbon emissions from coal-fired power stations.

• Reform energy markets to deliver security of supply and ensure fair competition.

• Put in place a framework to guide the development of a smart grid that will revolutionise the management of supply and demand for electricity.

• Ensure that North Sea infrastructure is available to all companies to ease the exploitation of smaller and more difficult oil and gas fields.

New energy and climate change secretary, Chris Huhne, said: “The Queen’s speech makes clear that energy security and taking real action to tackle climate change aren’t add-on extras for this new government, but are vital to our national interest.

“The energy bill is designed to help consumers put a stop to wasting energy in their homes through a green deal while making sure our energy system is fit for the 21st-century.”

Paul King, chief executive of the UK Green Building Council, welcomed the focus on improving the energy efficiency of homes and buildings.

“The biggest barrier preventing home owners carrying out low carbon refurbishment is the upfront cost of the measures.

“The ‘green deal’ will help overcome that problem by leveraging private sector investment – vitally important in this time of public sector spending cuts.”

He said legislation was needed to enable every home in the country to benefit from the pay-as-you-save scheme, which is already being piloted. “The legislation is also an opportunity to create a package of additional incentives that will encourage take-up of the green deal – and to bring forward a version of the scheme that will work for non-residential buildings,” he said.

Which? chief executive, Peter Vicary-Smith, welcomed the news that the government will also focus on consumers’ energy bills. “We’re glad the government recognises the need to tackle issues such as security of supply and the lack of competition in the energy market. Plans to improve bills are a step in the right direction but could go further. Including the name of the cheapest available tariff on every bill looks good on paper, but means little unless it’s backed up with a guarantee that it will still be the cheapest rate by the time the consumer switches tariffs,” he said.

Low Carbon Buildings Programme grants

One of the new government’s first acts was to end the last of the low-carbon buildings programme grants. Last February the last government announced that it wanted to replace grants with Feed-in-tariffs (FiT) – and immediately ended grants for those installing solar panels. Until 24 May there were still some grants available for those installing other green measurers such as air source heat pumps. However, those have now been scrapped in a bid to save money. From April next year those installing these measures under the Renewable Heat Incentive will get other FiTs instead.
Scott McLean, marketing director of Ownergy, commented: “It is a shame that the funding has closed 10 months before the Renewable Heat Incentive goes live on 1 April 2011 as it was a good incentive to build momentum of installations ahead of that date. However, we always knew this would happen and that there would not be any warning in advance – the same happened to low-carbon building programme grants for renewable electricity installations ahead of the Feed-In Tariffs going live.”

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Posted by on May 26th, 2010 and filed under Headlines, Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response by filling following comment form or trackback to this entry from your site

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