BY DAVID CRAIG
You probably know that a massive Energy Bill is being rushed through Parliament by our fake ‘Conservative’ Government in the first two days of our parliamentarians’ return from their generous summer break. The Bill is 446 pages long and written in dense, largely-incomprehensible-to-any-normal-person legalise. Moreover, many clauses in the Energy Bill make reference to other pieces of previous legislation. So, to fully understand the Bill, you would have to read at least a thousand pages of dense legalistic gobbledegook. Given that our MPs have just passed the Bill with a mere nine voting against it, one must assume that they have spent their summer holidays diligently reading through the Bill and other relevant legislation in order to fully understand what they were voting for.
Here’s the full title of the Bill:
‘A Bill to make provision about energy production and security and the regulation of the energy market, including provision about the licensing of carbon dioxide transport and storage; about commercial arrangements for industrial carbon capture and storage and for hydrogen production; about new technology, including low-carbon heat schemes and hydrogen grid trials; about the Independent System Operator and Planner; about gas and electricity industry codes; about heat networks; about energy smart appliances and load control; about the energy performance of premises; about the resilience of the core fuel sector; about offshore energy production, including environmental protection, licensing and decommissioning; about the civil nuclear sector, including the Civil Nuclear Constabulary; and for connected purposes’
As you’ll see, this legislative monster covers an awful lot of areas – energy production, regulation of the energy market, CO2 transport and storage, carbon capture, hydrogen production, low-carbon heat schemes, hydrogen grid trials, heat networks, smart appliances, load control, energy performance of industrial and residential premises, offshore energy production and the civil nuclear sector. We must be considered fortunate in Britain to have MPs who have such a strong work ethic and such a deep understanding of all these disparate issues to be able to vote for the new Energy Bill knowing exactly what they are voting for.
Life is too short for any normal person to read and to try to understand this massive abomination of almost impenetrable legalise. But here are some choice titbits which I think I understand.
The Bill explains what a ‘Smart Meter’ is:
“Energy smart appliance” means an appliance which is capable of adjusting the immediate or future flow of electricity into or out of itself or another appliance in response to a load control signal; and includes any software or other systems which enable or facilitate the adjustment to be made in response to the signal.
So it seems that the conspiracy theorists were right yet again – a key purpose of ‘Smart Meters’ is not only to measure power usage but also to allow energy providers to control how much energy we are allowed to consume using “a load control signal”.
Moreover, authorities will be allowed to use “reasonable force” to enter any homes or premises to ensure we have the approved ‘Smart Meters’ installed:
Requiring persons to supply evidence of their compliance to enforcement authorities; conferring powers of entry, including by reasonable force.
All electricity and gas meters have dates by which they should be replaced. From what I have read the Bill gives representatives from energy companies the power to enter any home, with police protection if required, to replace traditional meters at the end of their lives with smart meters. Again, “reasonable force” may be used.
The Bill gives the Government the power to force us to have energy assessments for any premises:
The Secretary of State may make regulations for any of these purposes: (a) enabling or requiring the energy usage or energy efficiency of premises to be assessed, certified and publicised;
We can be fined up to £15,000 or face one year in prison for failing to meet any future energy performance levels any government imposes:
Energy performance regulations may provide for the imposition of civil penalties by enforcement authorities in relation to cases falling within subsection (1)(b), (c) or (d); but the regulations may not provide for a civil penalty that exceeds £15,000.
Under the totally misleading title of ‘Energy Savings Opportunity Schemes’, authorities can force any person or company to make energy savings using the threat of criminalisation for failure to comply:
The Secretary of State may by regulations (“ESOS regulations”) make provision for the establishment and operation of one or more energy savings opportunity schemes. An “energy savings opportunity scheme” is a scheme under which obligations 30 are imposed on undertakings to which the scheme applies for one or more of the ESOS purposes.
I could go on. But I imagine you get the picture by now. This ‘Energy Bill’ creates the means by which some puffed-up public-sector mini-dictator could gain powers to control us in ways most people would find completely unacceptable. Yet our useless MPs passed the Bill with a massive majority and the Lords are set to do the same.
If there really was a ‘climate crisis’ caused by humans burning fossil fuels and threatening the existence of the human race as the BBC and others of its ilk repeatedly claim, then you might be able to argue that some of the measures in the Bill could be justified. But given that changes in atmospheric CO2 levels have little to no influence on the Earth’s temperatures, that Britain only contributes less than 1% of world CO2 output and that developing countries like India and China each increase their CO2 output by more each year than Britain’s total CO2 emissions, we are creating a totalitarian regime which will intrude on people’s lives, restrict people’s freedoms, wreck the British economy and immiserate our country to fix a problem which doesn’t even exist and, if it did, would not be solved by our action anyway.
And if you fear this horror will lead to an intrusive, oppressive police state under the Tories, imagine how this will be used and abused by Ed Miliband and the climate fanatics in the next Labour Government.
David Craig is the author of There is No Climate Crisis, available as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.
