If it is really true that Sunak is planning – as the BBC puts it – on “weakening key green policies”, then this represents a U-turn so sudden that it will leave rubber marks on the road that’ll still be visible at the end of the decade.
By the end of last week, the signs were very clear that the prime minister was “not for turning”. He was going to be steadfast is pursuing net-zero policies, not least to protect the investment plans of the UK car industry and related suppliers.
Now, out of the blue, we hear that by the end of the week Sunak could well be giving a speech announcing he is to delay the ban on the sales of new petrol and diesel cars until 2035, with a similar provision for gas boilers, when the 2035 target will be reduced to setting an 80 percent completion rate instead of a complete phase-out.
Some specifics of the speech are thought to be still under discussion, but the BBC suggests it could include as many as seven core policy changes. As well as the car and boiler changes, there will be no new energy efficiency regulations on homes – owned or rented – and fines on landlords who fail to upgrade their properties to a certain level of energy efficiency are to be abandoned.
Fourth, the 2026 ban on off-grid oil boilers will be delayed to 2035, with only an 80 percent phase out target at that date, as with gas boilers. Then there will be no new taxes to discourage flying, no government policies to change people’s diets and no measures to encourage carpooling.
In addition, it is likely that Sunak will rule out what he sees as burdensome recycling schemes, killing off the idea that households would have to have seven bins, with six separate recycling bins plus one for general waste.
First intimation of the news came at 6pm on the evening television bulletin from the BBC. Its presenters were almost hyperventilating as they announced what sketchy details they knew, only to firm up on the detail later in the programme, conveying a palpable sense of shock.
Within hours, most of the media – print and broadcast – were carrying the news, each with their own spin. A horrified Guardian headlined “Sunak planning to drop net zero policies in pre-election challenge to Labour”, the distinctive feature of its coverage being the space given to those opposing the idea.
Up front, we are told that environmental groups could challenge any decision to water down green policies in court, as the government has a legal obligation to set out in detail how it will meet its net zero target by 2050, with clear carbon budgets for different sectors.
Then the “usual suspects” are given an airing, starting with Skidmore who whinges about UK jobs, inward investment and future economic growth. Simon Clarke, a former levelling up secretary, speaks for his Middlesbrough constituents, claiming that they “overwhelmingly supported net zero policies”.
He is followed by Alok Sharma who complains that the UK “has been a leader on climate action but we cannot rest on our laurels”, declaring that: “For any party to resile from this agenda will not help economically or electorally”. Sam Hall, who runs the Conservative Environment Network of more than 150 backbench MPs and peers, echoes Sharma.
Pride of place goes to the increasingly vile Green Caroline Lucas, who is recorded as tweeted a tennis image, writing: “Game, set & match to the climate dinosaurs?” She adds: “Sunak is economically illiterate, historically inaccurate and environmentally bone-headed. This absurd rollback will mean higher energy bills, colder homes, fewer jobs, more air pollution & more climate chaos”.
Of course, no round-up would be complete without a comment from the shadow climate secretary, Ed Miliband, who tells the Guardian: “This is a complete farce from a Tory government that literally does not know what they are doing day to day. Thirteen years of failed energy policy has led to an energy bills crisis, weakened our energy security, lost jobs, and failed on the climate crisis”.
The Financial Times conveys a response from an official spokesman, who said, “Our approach will always be pragmatic and ensure costs are not passed on to hard-working families”. He declined to comment on “speculation”.
Sunak, says the paper, thinks he can trap Labour on the wrong side of an argument on green policies, suggesting that party leader Sir Keir Starmer is being overzealous at the expense of households. The danger for Sunak, the paper adds, is that he will alienate many potential Conservative voters over what could appear as a retreat from a green agenda promoted by his predecessors Boris Johnson and Theresa May.
Ostensibly on the other side of the fence (although one does wonder) was the Telegraph which seems to be keeping its powder dry, offering a short news report with no reactions recorded. The comments, however, tell their own story – 2,157 at the time of writing.
Perhaps in response to the sharp reaction from his critics, Sunak came out of the woodwork to deliver an unusual late evening statement about the “leak”, failing to deny the substance. Instead, he wrote:
I know people are frustrated with politics and want real change. Our political system rewards short-term decision-making that is holding our country back. For too many years politicians in governments of all stripes have not been honest about costs and trade-offs. Instead, they have taken the easy way out, saying we can have it all.
Obviously referring to the leak, he went on to say:
This realism doesn’t mean losing our ambition or abandoning our commitments. Far from it. I am proud that Britain is leading the world on climate change. We are committed to net-zero by 2050 and the agreements we have made internationally – but doing so in a better, more proportionate way.
“Our politics”, he said, “must again put the long-term interests of our country before the short-term political needs of the moment”, before concluding:
No leak will stop me beginning the process of telling the country how and why we need change. As a first step, I’ll be giving a speech this week to set out an important long-term decision we need to make so our country becomes the place I know we all want it to be for our children.
Subsequently, we were to learn that some Tory MPs had been “very surprised” by the moves, with one calling them “anti-business”, representing a broken promise made in private to party MPs. This MP, unprompted, said he was “seriously considering” a no-confidence letter.
This does rather open up speculation on why Sunak should have made such a contentious move, at this particular juncture. Although we were expecting a statement from him at some point, there doesn’t seem to be a specific event on which the U-turn can be pinned.
The best on offer seems to be recent polling from Matt Goodwin, described in some detail in The Sun in which Goodwin declared: “If Rishi Sunak is to have any chance of winning the next general election, then he should be doing a lot more to tap into people’s growing sense of exasperation with the spiralling costs of net-zero”.
Having irritated and alienated the voters who supported Johnson in 2019 – by failing to stop the small boats crossing the Channel, presiding over record levels of legal immigration and struggling to curb inflation – Sunak is currently only holding on to half of this cohort.
Ask them – the very people who will determine whether or not Sunak remains in power – whether net-zero should be prioritised, even if this increases people’s bills, or whether lowering their bills should be put first even if this undermines the quest to achieve net-zero – and just seven per cent vote for net-zero. Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) want slashing the cost of living to be given the priority.
Goodwin says he has told Downing Street that net-zero is certainly not as important to voters as fixing our weak economy, our collapsing NHS and out-of-control immigration. If he was able to link this issue to the wider cost-of-living crisis then the PM would find a receptive audience among the very people he needs to win back.
Maybe it is because Sunak has been unable to deal with these other issues, on a day that it is reported that the cost of housing illegal immigrants has soared to £8 million a day, that he feels the need to make a “grand statement”, demonstrating that he is on the voters’ side.
We may know more later in the week when we hear for certain what the prime minister has to say.