Last Tuesday something happened in the House of Commons so weird that it must be counted as one of the more terrifying episodes in the entire history of our Parliament. Towards the end of a seven-hour debate on its virtually incomprehensible, 200-page Energy Bill, the Government slipped in a new amendment proposing something so utterly mad that, if anyone present had understood its implications, it might have made front-page news. What MPs were being asked to endorse was that, within just six years, we should all be forced by law to make a mind-boggling cut in how much electricity we are allowed to use. The reason why no one seemed to grasp this was that the amendment was so opaquely dressed up that only an MP with some knowledge of the basics of electricity might have twigged the enormity of what was being proposed. By 2020, it said, Britain must reduce its electricity use by “103 terawatt hours”, rising by 2030 to “154 terawatt hours”. This could have been understood only by someone aware that we currently use each year some 378 “terawatt hours”. So what was being proposed was that this must be cut down in six years by 27 per cent – more than a quarter – rising 10 years later to a cut of more than 40 per cent, or two fifths.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 20:30:59 +0000
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