A further exchange with Jeremy Hunt MP on "nett zero"

Today, I received a reply to my e-mail to Jeremy Hunt MP, dated 29th November last year, regarding "nett zero." Here it is.

From: Jeremy Hunt MP 

Sent: 18 April 2024 16:59

Subject: RE: Nett Zero (Case Ref: JE93132)

Dear Neil, 

Thank you very much for your email and thoughts and I sincerely apologise for the immense delay in my reply. Regarding the report you mention,  the government is committed to tackling both the negative effects of air pollution and ensuring motorists can go about their lives normally. These goals are both achievable together. This is why in October last year the government announced a new plan to support drivers, keeping motoring costs under control to ensure that everyone has the freedom to drive as they need to. If you would like to read more about this report, you can do so here. I also hope it was welcome news in my Spring Budget last month that fuel duty will be frozen for an additional 12 months, which will save the average car driver £50 next year. 

Regarding transparency on net zero policies, I would just note that last year the government made it clear that we will take a realistic, pragmatic approach to reaching net zero. The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak announced revised plans for the government's approach to net zero to ease the burden on working people. That includes easing the transition to electric vehicles from 2030 to 2035 and giving families more time to transition to heat pumps while significantly increasing grants to upgrade boilers. If you would like to read more about these plans you can do so here. 

I appreciate your detailed thoughts and I will of course continue to monitor developments in this area. 

Finally, if you do not already receive it, would it be helpful for you to receive my weekly update of events in Westminster and locally? You can sign up here and can unsubscribe at any time. 

Thank you again for writing to me.

Best wishes,

Jeremy

And here is my reply:

Dear Mr Hunt,

Thank you for your reply to my e-mail of 29th November.

As to “ensuring motorists can go about their lives normally,” just yesterday I ran across this: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/diesel-drivers-could-banned-quickly-140857783.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHa2fdrn0HYtEg3rd29mQYS7_OtYV3icB7eo6A90FBsiqIJczeTiZqKyEcXc3SNnW6R6vzNLpgQznl_kY6Q5NiPp_rou0MbvrUYXHPMNOksI62hRSwk-1qQCS94USfs10ke9Idu_WcccfiDGjGOyX20POKCULhqaPvjEZI6f0PpQ. Unless you and the rest of the government can explicitly commit to stopping all such schemes, preventing them happening in the future, and allowing drivers to continue driving their existing cars without penalties for the rest of their lives, any reassurances you try to make on this score will not be believable.

I took a look at the “Plan for Drivers” you linked to at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/plan-for-drivers/the-plan-for-drivers. I have to say that I find Mr Harper’s words there to be nothing but empty platitudes. When he failed to overrule the ULEZ expansion into Outer London, Mr Harper lost all credibility in my eyes, and I know I am not alone in that view.

As to “transparency on net zero policies,” you do not seem to have understood my main point, that no proper cost-benefit analysis has been done on “net zero” policies. If such an analysis were to be done now, it would show very clearly that the costs of “net zero” to the people are far greater than any putative “benefits.” (If, indeed, there actually are any benefits at all). That means that no government which honestly sets out to serve the people – as any democracy worth the name should always do – would ever have gone ahead with such a policy. Any honest government, seeing that the costs of “net zero” outweigh the benefits, would cancel those policies completely with immediate effect.

But you and your government have gone ahead with the “net zero” policies, without ever doing any proper cost-benefit analysis on them. Indeed, the current prime minister, when he became chancellor in 2020, set in motion a review of the “Green Book,” whose effect was to exempt “strategic” policies such as these from cost-benefit analysis altogether. In my view, this was an extremely dishonest thing to do. And it was only the latest in the “long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all tending the same way” (in John Locke’s words), which has prevented proper cost-benefit analysis ever being done on policies like “net zero,” that flow from the climate change agenda.

I therefore have to assume that you and your party have no interest in honestly serving the people. Again, I am by no means alone in this. The government you are part of has been haemorrhaging its legitimacy, bit by bit, since at least Theresa May’s time at the helm. You are living on borrowed time, Mr Hunt.

Yours sincerely,

Neil Lock