Weekend press round-up: Corbyn promises £250bn green upgrade to UK homes

Jeremy Corbyn promises a £250 billion green upgrade to the UK’s housing; Boris Johnson abandons government support for fracking; and sewage spills put swimmers at risk – all in this weekend’s press round-up.

Corbyn promises to upgrade every UK home with energy-saving measures to tackle climate crisis

Jeremy Corbyn is promising the largest upgrade to UK housing since the Second World War in a bid to cut both carbon emissions and household bills.

The Labour leader wants to oversee a £250 billion project named “Warm Homes for All” which would install loft insulation, double glazing and green technology in almost all of the country’s 27 million homes by 2030.

He said the investment will create 450,000 jobs across the economy and cut carbon emissions by 10 per cent.

Labour claims that the project will only cost central government £60 billion, with most of the funding coming from savings to household energy bills.

“If we don’t radically change course we face the threat of a hostile and dying planet,” said Mr Corbyn.

“But Labour will turn that threat into an opportunity. By investing on a massive scale, we will usher in a green industrial revolution with good, clean jobs that will transform towns, cities and communities that have been held back and neglected for decades.”

The party says its plans will also reduce energy bills for low income households by an average of £417 a year and virtually eradicate fuel poverty by the 2020s.

Upgrades to low income households will be funded by grants, with savings on their bills being used to pay off some of the costs of the work on their homes.

Meanwhile, wealthier households will be offered interest free loans to improve their homes and lower their energy bills, and landlords will have to ensure their properties are warm and energy efficient.

Labours plans for what it calls the “Green Industrial Revolution” have so far included a promise to renationalise the national grid and cut the UK’s carbon emissions to net-zero by 2030.

The Independent

Boris Johnson to ban fracking

Boris Johnson’s government is to abandon the Conservatives’ decade-long policy of supporting fracking as the party seeks to neutralise Labour attacks on its environmental record.

Fracking for shale gas is to be banned in Britain with immediate effect because of the “unacceptable” risk of earthquakes, ministers will announce today. The move comes after a review found it impossible to predict the probability or scale of earthquakes.

The prime minister, who previously hailed fracking as “an answer to the nation’s prayers”, acknowledged this week “very considerable anxieties” over the practice.

Public opposition to fracking has grown and there is mounting concern from Tory MPs, who have called for the party to follow Labour’s promise of a ban.

It threatened to become an issue in the election after it emerged that a lobbyist whose firm represents the fracking company Cuadrilla is writing the Conservative manifesto. The move represents part of the Tory party’s pitch to win over liberal and green voters.

The Times can also disclose that Mr Johnson has abandoned the threat of a no-deal Brexit in the Conservative manifesto, which will instead focus on his deal. The government has embarked on a public spending spree that rivals Labour’s, including commitments to 20,000 more police officers and new hospitals.

Previous Tory governments have enthusiastically supported fracking, which has transformed the United States into an energy superpower and vastly reduced oil and gas prices. When he was chancellor, George Osborne said that he wanted Britain to be “a leader of the shale gas revolution”.

British Geological Survey estimates suggest that there could be 1,300 trillion cubic feet of shale gas under northern England. If only 10 per cent could be extracted Britain’s gas needs would be met for more than 40 years.

However, in August a 2.9 magnitude tremor caused by fracking shook homes near Blackpool. A review by the Oil and Gas Authority concluded that it was “not currently possible to accurately predict the probability or magnitude of earthquakes linked to fracking operations”.

Andrea Leadsom, the business secretary, said: “While acknowledging the huge potential of UK shale gas to provide a bridge to a zero-carbon future, I’ve also always been clear that shale gas exploration in the UK must be carried out safely. After reviewing the Oil and Gas Authority’s inquiry into recent seismic activity at Preston New Road [in Lancashire], it is clear that we cannot rule out future unacceptable impacts on the local community.”

Fracking would not be allowed in Britain “unless and until further evidence is provided that it can be carried out safely”, the government said.

The tremor in August was 25 times bigger than Cuadrilla, the company fracking in Lancashire, had predicted.

The Times

Labour eyes penalties for financers of climate change

The UK’s opposition Labour party is drawing up plans to penalise banks and hedge funds that “finance climate change” and to incentivise them to invest in green enterprises, in a sign that the environment will be a big general election issue.

John McDonnell, shadow chancellor, wants to use financial levers to help achieve a zero-carbon economy by the 2030s, while the Tory government has a legally binding target of 2050.

Mr McDonnell, said: “It’s clear there is a long way to go before the finance sector is pulling its weight to achieve the rapid changes our economy needs to meet our climate obligations.”

He was speaking ahead of the publication of a report entitled Finance and Climate Change by a panel whose members included Bob Kerslake, former head of the civil service, academics and finance experts.

Labour says it wants to “go after” financial institutions that fund polluters, echoing party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s attack this week on supposedly unscrupulous landlords, hedge funds, media barons and employers.

Mr McDonnell, who commissioned the green finance report, said he would take on board its recommendations and put forward the party’s proposals in its election manifesto.

The shadow chancellor is considering making companies disclose the climate impact and risks of their activities as well as charging the Bank of England with taking more action to protect the climate — an agenda being pursued by governor Mark Carney.

Mr McDonnell’s argument starts from the idea that the government’s existing rules and regulations rely too much on the free market and contain “too much carrot and too little stick”.

The report seeks to tweak or transform incentives to promote lower carbon emissions across the financial services sector wherever government or financial regulators might have leverage.

It says that an ambitious green finance agenda needs “a clear description of what counts as green and what does not”, suggesting work to classify activities according to their “greenness and brownness”.

Labour would require companies to disclose the climate impact of their activities, so that a register of their “greenness” could be compiled.

This is already under way with the Bank of England expecting all large asset owners to disclose their holdings under the “Task force on Green-related Financial Disclosures” initiative by 2022.

It would also set up a task force to encourage private finance to help a Labour government meet its commitment to zero net carbon emissions by 2030.

Financial Times

Sun, sea and sewage: 1,700 spills put swimmers at risk

Beaches in England and Wales were polluted by more than 1,700 spills of sewage over the summer, exposing swimmers to the risk of infection and illness, a new report reveals.

The worst offender was Southern Water, which oversees 700 miles of coastline in Kent, Sussex and Hampshire and on the Isle of Wight. It had 571 sewage and storm-water spills, says the report by the Surfers Against Sewage charity.

Southern agreed this year to pay a £126 million penalty demanded by Ofwat, the regulator, after failures in its sewage treatment works affected rivers and beaches.

It was found to have manipulated performance figures and made insufficient investment to prevent sewage spills. The Sunday Times revealed in July that Southern had reported more than 157 spills in the first six weeks of the summer.

Sandown, on the Isle of Wight, had 44 alerts about raw sewage during the season. Another of the island’s beaches, Yaverland, had 41 spills.

At one point during one of the wettest summers on record, swimmers were advised to avoid more than 50 beaches because of sewage discharges. They included Blackpool north, Brighton central, Combe Martin, in north Devon, and Long Rock, near Penzance.

Swimmers are advised to avoid the water for 48 hours after raw sewage may have entered bathing areas. Surfers Against Sewage calculates that swimmers were advised not to go into the sea for one in 10 of the available bathing days at 265 beaches that can be affected by sewage — more than half the beaches in England and Wales.

Hugo Tagholm, the charity’s chief executive, said: “There has been an incredible improvement in our water quality, but 1,700 sewage spills is huge. The spectre of pollution seems to be returning to our beaches and rivers.”

The 2019 water quality report shows there were 1,784 alerts about spills of raw sewage and storm water during the bathing season from May 15 to September 30.

South West Water had 273 spills, United Utilities had 247, Wessex Water had 149 and Yorkshire Water had 54. The coast around Brighton was one of the worst-affected areas, with 220 reported spills from five overflows.

The Times

British Gas in hot water over the ‘rip off’ cost of its boiler insurance

British Gas stands accused of ripping off customers who pay for boiler insurance.

One in six are paying more than £500 a year for cover – with some forking out £750 or more.

Watchdog Which? found it to be the dearest among companies that offer attractive introductory deals only to ramp up premiums for two-thirds of their customers.

On average, British Gas customers pay from £354 to £375 for an annual service and boiler maintenance. But 17 per cent pay more than £500 a year.

British Gas dominates the boiler cover market, says the watchdog.

Three in five Which? members who have the insurance are with the energy giant.

Which? magazine editor Harry Rose said: “The eye-watering premiums charged by British Gas seem impossible to justify.

“Many new boilers come with a warranty up to 10 years, so it is worth checking before you consider separate boiler
insurance.”

Homeserve charges the next highest premiums, averaging £288 to £344. Corgi is cheapest, from £242 to £277.

Modern boilers typically cost from £1,000 to £2,000 – with replacement covered by maintenance insurance.

British Gas said: “The figures in this survey are not representative of our actual customer base.

The average premium for our HomeCare customers is £258 and for those with an £60 excess on their policy this figure is lower at £186.

“Some customers choose a more comprehensive policy with us, also covering drains, plumbing and electrical appliances.”

Mirror

Net-zero world must conquer its irrational fear of nuclear power

In March 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi power plant was swamped when a tsunami struck the coast of Japan, leading to a nuclear meltdown in several of its reactors.

The accident sparked an upsurge of anti-nuclear feeling across the country. Angry public demonstrations piled pressure on a jittery Japanese government. So to protect the people from any further risk from such accidents, politicians applied the precautionary principle. Over the next few months, they closed the country’s entire nuclear industry down.

In a recent paper about the Fukushima aftermath, three academics looked at what happened as a result of that decision.

They noted that while closure clearly obviated the possibility of further nuclear accidents, it did not come without cost. Japan depended on atomic power for a third of its electricity. The need to restart mothballed fossil-fuel plants led to a sharp spike in the power price. It rose by as much as 38 per cent in some regions between January 2011 and the following year.

Unlike Europe or the US, most Japanese households use electricity for heating. The price hikes led to a contraction in consumption, especially in winter. The authors concluded that this led to an increase in mortality, especially among the old.

They estimate that more than 4,500 may have died as a result of the high prices that followed the nuclear shutdown, far more than the estimated 1,232 whose deaths are directly attributed to the accident — mainly as a result of the subsequent evacuation (only one is thought to have died as a result of exposure to radiation, although that does not exclude the possibility of more premature deaths in future years).

So in their attempt to protect the public against what appears to have been a negligible risk (that of harm from radiation) politicians had exposed the people to a greater, and entirely avoidable, harm. Japan is not the only example of such an overreaction.

Germany also responded to Fukushima, despite tsunamis not being much of a risk along the Baltic coastline. Angela Merkel announced the accelerated closure of its nuclear plants, a policy that has actually stalled the country’s decarbonisation in spite of an investment of $580 billion by 2025 in renewables (and an associated increase in electricity prices of some 50 per cent).

The Chernobyl disaster in 1986, recently the subject of a widely-watched TV series, froze nuclear development in the west for two decades and raised the costs of development markedly. Yet it happened mainly because of a flawed and shoddy design that was never employed outside the Soviet bloc. And even then, the health consequences are often wildly overstated.

Far from the tens of thousands sometimes claimed to have been victims of the disaster, the real numbers are smaller. A BBC investigation in 2011 put the confirmed deaths at 50 to 60. Beyond that we start to drift into conjecture and guess. None of this is to say that atomic power is without risk to the public. But it points to our difficulty in appraising the real scale of that risk.

Financial Times