We Need To Tread Carefully In Our Mission To Go Green

IN the battle between the Chancellor and the Business Secretary, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is right to back Kwasi Kwarteng in giving help to UK industries hit by huge gas price hikes.

- Tim Newark Political commentator

With gas prices rising fourfold in recent months, British factories are teetering on the edge of closure if their products cannot be made at a competitive cost to sell on the international market.

UK steel makers are already paying 50 to 80 per cent more for electricity than German makers and claim they need a £55million bailout just to stay open. Scunthorpe-based British Steel is adding surcharges of up to £30 a tonne to its products to cover higher energy costs. As new coal-fired power stations open every month, Chinese steel makers are laughing all the way to the bank.

With the UK jobs market surging to a 20-year record high of 1.1 million vacancies between July and September this year, according to figures from the ONS out this week, it would be a pity to put all that bounce-back positivity at risk as Britain’s manufacturers are forced to shut because of skyhigh energy costs.