WORKING-CLASS Brits think Net Zero is a “fantasy world” that will hit them in the wallets, the Energy Secretary has been warned.
Sun Cabbie Grant Davies warned Tory Claire Coutinho the crippling costs of going green are unaffordable to most normal people.
Grilled on this week’s edition of Never Mind the Ballots, Grant hit out: “There’s working class people who can’t put a tenner on the electric metre and you’re saying we’ve got to buy a heat pump for £13,000?
“Even with the discount it comes to eight or nine grand. It’s a sort of fantasy world, isn’t it?”
But Ms Coutinho insisted she had slowed down Net Zero plans to help Brits catch up with the cost of replacing boilers and fossil fuel cars with green alternatives.
She told The Sun: “We are the first country to have halved emissions out of the top 20 largest economies in the world. So we’re doing very well at this.
“Most importantly, we’ve done that whilst growing the economy and protecting household finances, which is what I care about.”
But cabbie Grant hit back: “How do you think normal working-class people can afford Net Zero?”
Dad-of-two Grant also wanted to know how ordinary folk could afford green heat pumps at around £13,000, even though the Government was giving grants of £6,000 towards the cost.
He asked: “How could I afford seven or eight grand compared to three grand?
“No wonder so many people think this government is out of touch with normal people.”
In a no holds barred grilling, Ms Coutinho also:
Grant added: “If you went into a pub or sat in my cab and I said to my passengers, you need a new boiler, three grand, or you’re going to buy a heat pump for seven or eight grand – you making me laugh, Claire.”
But the Secretary of State told him: “One of the first things that I did when I came in to post was to push back some of the dates when it comes to people’s cars and people’s boilers.
“Because I know they’ve had a really tough time and I wanted to give people a bit more time.”
The Tories also increased the grant for heat pumps to £7,500.
Ms Coutinho added: “That grant is now the most generous of its kind in Europe.
“Because after the pandemic and the cost of living crisis, what I don’t want to do is heap costs onto families when, they’ve just had a really difficult time.”
She revealed that there has been a 75per cent increase year-on-year for the £7,500 grant.
And added: “You’ve got companies of bringing the price down and coming up with new ways of doing this. And I’m giving you a helping hand.
“At the same time I want to give people the space so they can make choices for themselves.”
By Jack Elsom
Meddling Euro judges should stay the hell out of countries’ climate policies, the Energy Secretary has warned.
Claire Coutinho promised Sun readers she would fight off Strasbourg’s attempts to impose eco targets that would whack Brits in the wallet.
She hit out after the European Court of Human Rights controversially ruled against Switzerland for not doing enough to go green.
Speaking on Never Mind The Ballots, rising star Ms Coutinho: “It’s I think an overreach for the ECHR to try and dictate climate change policy, because actually, as we’ve talked about in this cab, what you do in your climate change policy affects people’s energy bills, it affects the kind of choices they might have to make for their homes.
“It’s really your national security as well. This is really far reaching. So at the moment, we’ve been talking to international counterparts, looking at what the judgement means.
“But I don’t think it’s right for international courts to set our climate change policies.”
Ms Coutinho did not rule out a renegotiation with the ECHR, which many Tory MPs want to quit altogether.
Rishi Sunak has vowed to leave the foreign court should it block Rwanda deportation flights taking off.
In the front of the cab, Grant also revealed that he was forced to buy an electric cab which, with interest, costs £100,000.
He said: “It’s a lovely cab but for working-class taxi drivers to have a £100,000 cab just to go to work it’s becoming ridiculous.
“It’s all out of sync and I don’t know where they think people get the money from. I really don’t.”
He added: “China’s flooding Europe and England with cheaper electric vehicles because they’re building them using fossil fuel power stations that we can’t. It’s going to absolutely destroy our automotive industries.”
Would the Government follow US President Joe Biden, who overnight slapped a 100per cent tariff on electric vehicles coming from China?
Ms Coutinho revealed: “That would sit with the Transport Secretary and I know he’ll look at all of these things very carefully. I think it’s also really important that you protect British industry. We’ve got to get that balance right.”
But she warned if Sir Keir Starmer won at the polls later in the year, they would be even closer to the Chinese.
She added: “I’ve talked a lot about the threat of China and why we want to have things made here.
“But if you look at Labour’s policy, which is to go ever faster, ever further, actually what you really risk is having a transition which is made in China because they’re going to have to import a bunch of things.”
Grant revealed that not only did the race for Net Zero mean he had to buy an electric cab.
But he also had to sell his perfectly good family car and buy another one because of London’s hated Ulez expansion.
By Jack Elsom
The Energy Secretary has admitted her flagship home insulation scheme has been “slow on the uptake”.
Claire Countinho vowed to get better results after stats revealed just two per cent of the 300,000 target has been hit.
Only 4,648 homes have benefitted from the government’s Great British Housing Insulation Scheme designed to bring down bills.
Ms Coutinho said: “I has been a bit slow on the uptake and we’re working hard to improve that.
“But overall, when it comes to homes in this country, when we came into power in 2010, only 14 per cent of them were well insulated and now it’s almost half.
“So we’ve come a long way. We’ve also done 70 per cent of social homes.
“So for people who are on the lowest incomes, we’ve gone even further and we’ve got to keep going. So yes, I need to speed that up.”
The Energy Secretary had sympathy and told him: “I have a constituency which borders London, so I’ve had people in my surgeries.
“I’ve gone to primary schools where six-year-olds ask me about Ulez because their parents can’t afford to get to work. I think it’s a complete disgrace.
“I campaigned against it. I think it’s I think it’s an appalling policy. It’s exactly how you don’t want to do climate change policy.
“You’re making people who have the least pay the most and you are not providing solutions for them.
“This is exactly why I think the next election is really important. Because I don’t want the Labour Party to do to the rest of the country what they did to London.”
