Conservative MP blasts ‘colossal’ costs of net-zero plans

Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay has criticised the government’s net-zero plan, complaining of its ”truly colossal” cost to the taxpayer.

Speaking on LBC radio following the Prime Minister’s speech yesterday at the Global Investment Summit the MP who chairs the “Net Zero Scrutiny Group” hit back at the Prime Minister’s remarks yesterday, in which he called for more robust action on climate change, such as the UK’s net-zero strategy.

He took aim at claims the plans would lead to green jobs, saying that when it came to Scottish wind farms for example: “The entirety of the construction, the steel and everything else is being produced in China!”

He added that the costs of retrofitting British houses “are truly colossal”, and could reach “over £30,000 per household”, around £960 billion in taxation.

Mr Mackinley told LBC that British households “be sitting around their tepid radiators wondering why on earth they wanted this when their old gas boiler could have been replaced at a much [more] reasonable cost.”

“I don’t actually feel this is a very conservative policy when you’re asking my constituents to be colder and poorer,” he explained.

He added: “I want to leave this planet in a better state than we found it”, but insisted “there are better ways of doing it” than the government’s current plans.

“I think we need a more positive nuclearisation strategy…hydrogen has a future.”

As part of its strategy to address climate change and reduce climate risk in the wake of the Paris Climate Agreement, the UK became the world’s first major economy to legislate on achieving net-zero emissions.

The UK has pledged to reduce emissions by 80% from 1990 and 2050. In June 2019, the UK passed legislation increasing this goal to 100%, thereby carving the path towards a net-zero economy.