The Lemon Fool

Just read an article containing this statement:

"With the Treasury examining an expansion of a scheme designed to help the poorest with their energy bills"

Why ??

While I personally agree that the state should not be subsidising things, it's not unknown.

Some countries have had free electricity. Indeed MP's here have talked of "electricity too cheap to meter" in the past. Here we charge a levy on transport fuel (and VAT as well). In the USA they didn't and I'm not sure if they have started. Currently there is VAT on domestic fuel (electricity and gas), why?

It's all "bread and circuses", and has been for 2000 years since the quote. Possible it predates the quote.

If you were wanting a serious answer, then taxing things that people must pay for is an easy way to raise money, when they can pay. Taxing things that they can't afford (assuming that they need them in the first place) is a quick way to start a revolution and be deposed. Indeed you don't even need to tax them, simply not ensuring that people can afford them can be enough.

Food riots are the start of most revolutions and fuel is our modern replacement.

https://www.hmsschoolofchristianjournal ... on-of-1917

, the chronic shortage of food and, perhaps most importantly, the lack of fuel for cooking and heating, led to what was called the Women’s Strike, although far more men were involved. Riots broke out, people were killed. Shops were looted.

scotview wrote:Just read an article containing this statement:

"With the Treasury examining an expansion of a scheme designed to help the poorest with their energy bills"

Why ??

OK, it's The Guardian AND The Resolution Foundation AND Torsten Bell (who never met a welfare handout he didn't like). The trite trifecta of confiscation and redistribution:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... come-bills

But why would any Tory listen to him?

scotview wrote:Just read an article containing this statement:

"With the Treasury examining an expansion of a scheme designed to help the poorest with their energy bills"

Why ??

Why not? If it does not help the poorest this way they will have to help the poorest in another, by increasing welfare benefits for example.

Until I read it in today's FT I did not know the scheme existed but there is a warm homes discount scheme apparently, which provides a price rebate of £140 for 2.7 million poorer households. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the scheme is financed through a levy on the energy bills of the better off households. I am glad that I am a relatively modest user of electricity and do not have gas in my house.

Dod

scotview wrote:Just read an article containing this statement:

"With the Treasury examining an expansion of a scheme designed to help the poorest with their energy bills"

Why ??

Because in a civilised society it's the right thing to do

AiY

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:

scotview wrote:Just read an article containing this statement:

"With the Treasury examining an expansion of a scheme designed to help the poorest with their energy bills"

Why ??

Because in a civilised society it's the right thing to do

AiY

While there's no argument at all with that
- power is one of those services that lives in my head at a more "essential" level than simply a morally decent thing to help people obtain

I've stayed in very few places that are self sufficient wrt energy (normally for the purposes of helping to make them so)
- part of evolving as a species was that folk specialised in stuff and we all benefitted from the efficiencies gained

It just doesn't make sense to require folk to generate their own energy, or water, or educate their kids themselves, or make them pave only the roads they use - most societies have centralised the provision of those things because it doesn't really work any other way and they are to a good degree "essential" for modern life as we know it to function

That does make the equitable and fair levying of charges a bit difficult - there are plenty of different approaches, none of them perfect
- but if your scheme can result in people freezing to death it's probably one of the less successful

- sd

servodude wrote:

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:

scotview wrote:Just read an article containing this statement:

"With the Treasury examining an expansion of a scheme designed to help the poorest with their energy bills"

Why ??

Because in a civilised society it's the right thing to do

While there's no argument at all with that - power is one of those services that lives in my head at a more "essential" level than simply a morally decent thing to help people obtain

Just because something is deemed essential does not mean that it has to be government-provided, funded, subsidised or "helped".

Food is essential but is provided privately and at full cost.

Water is essential but is provided privately, albeit regulated a bit more.

Petrol/diesel is essential and is provided privately. Not only is it not subsidised but it is taxed heavily.

So why should electricity or gas be any different?

If I were put in charge of handing out energy subsides to people who claim they cannot afford to heat their own home then I would first want to know if they buy alcohol or tobacco, whether they have a big-screen TV and/or a satellite/cable streaming service, and whether they take foreign trips and holidays.

Lootman wrote:If I were put in charge of handing out energy subsides to people who claim they cannot afford to heat their own home then I would first want to know if they buy alcohol or tobacco, whether they have a big-screen TV and/or a satellite/cable streaming service, and whether they take foreign trips and holidays.

[Scrooge] Likewise. [/Scrooge]

But we or at any rate most of us have become profligate in home energy use.
One need only walk around any suburban street in the evening to see that most households seem to heat every room;
Heat the house so they can wear shirtsleeves;
And often not draw the curtains, if indeed they even have curtains.

Heat the living room, shut the curtains at dusk, wear a woolly, and see what that does for the energy bill.

It's not just the home. We stayed at a hotel over Xmas, they have a newish spa. It had never occurred to me, but that spa has a sauna and steam room, a heated pool, a hot tub, the manager mentioned that the electricity bill is >£50k. £50,000
All for no essential purpose whatever.
And yet many customers - they have a waiting list - would no doubt claim to be concerned about 'the climate' etc.

From Labour, we hear predictably about a windfall tax on big oil. The same big oil that, assailed by ESG nonsense, has cut its capex on developing new fields, thus creating the gas & oil shortage which is the origin of the price spike. Big oil needs to spend on exploration and development, not be handing money to hand-wringers for handouts.

It's very noticeable that in all the guff coming out of the media about energy prices there is not one word about the need to develop more fossil fuel resource to bridge the yawning chasm between the hot air about renewables and a future actuality of a renewable+battery+nuclear grid.

And then, there's the govt decision to close our gas storage facilities because they were 'uneconomical', so instead we are in a bidding war in the spot market for shiploads of LNG. A fine way to run a country.

One way and another it would be nice to hear a bit more than myopic bleating about April energy costs.

V8

Lootman wrote:

servodude wrote:

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:

scotview wrote:Just read an article containing this statement:

"With the Treasury examining an expansion of a scheme designed to help the poorest with their energy bills"

Why ??

Because in a civilised society it's the right thing to do

While there's no argument at all with that - power is one of those services that lives in my head at a more "essential" level than simply a morally decent thing to help people obtain

Just because something is deemed essential does not mean that it has to be government-provided, funded, subsidised or "helped".

Food is essential but is provided privately and at full cost.

Water is essential but is provided privately, albeit regulated a bit more.

Petrol/diesel is essential and is provided privately. Not only is it not subsidised but it is taxed heavily.

So why should electricity or gas be any different?

If I were put in charge of handing out energy subsides to people who claim they cannot afford to heat their own home then I would first want to know if they buy alcohol or tobacco, whether they have a big-screen TV and/or a satellite/cable streaming service, and whether they take foreign trips and holidays.

Since there is already a warm homes discount scheme benefiting 2.7 million households, you seem to have lost that argument already.

Dod

There is a dilemma here. One wants to support the poor to a reasonable ‘safety net’ extent but on the other hand if we are trying to use less energy the last thing we should be doing is subsidising it.

It seems quite possible that this massive spike in gas prices is temporary and will unwind when the winter is over so anything done should not be permanent.

Lastly it is crazy for HMG to discourage greater production of gas and oil in the North Sea. So log as we have to use it, it is better to produce it ourself than import it. Even a politician should be able to see that.

Lootman wrote:If I were put in charge of handing out energy subsides to people who claim they cannot afford to heat their own home then I would first want to know if they buy alcohol or tobacco, whether they have a big-screen TV and/or a satellite/cable streaming service, and whether they take foreign trips and holidays.

Would you check if they purchased expensive toilet rolls or the cheaper unbranded? Would you also make sure they only used two squares per visit?

AiY

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:

Lootman wrote:If I were put in charge of handing out energy subsides to people who claim they cannot afford to heat their own home then I would first want to know if they buy alcohol or tobacco, whether they have a big-screen TV and/or a satellite/cable streaming service, and whether they take foreign trips and holidays.

Would you check if they purchased expensive toilet rolls or the cheaper unbranded? Would you also make sure they only used two squares per visit?

AiY

No cash subsidies but have jersey and mitten distribution points

Didn't have central heating when I was a boy! You just put on more clothes.

scrumpyjack wrote:

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:

Lootman wrote:If I were put in charge of handing out energy subsides to people who claim they cannot afford to heat their own home then I would first want to know if they buy alcohol or tobacco, whether they have a big-screen TV and/or a satellite/cable streaming service, and whether they take foreign trips and holidays.

Would you check if they purchased expensive toilet rolls or the cheaper unbranded? Would you also make sure they only used two squares per visit?

No cash subsidies but have jersey and mitten distribution points

Didn't have central heating when I was a boy! You just put on more clothes.

Yes, reminds me of the time when I offered my leftover pizza to a homeless guy who had a sign saying that he was begging for food, and he turned it down because it had "the wrong topping". And not of course because he really only wanted cash so he could buy drugs.

scotview wrote:Just read an article containing this statement:

"With the Treasury examining an expansion of a scheme designed to help the poorest with their energy bills"

Why ??

Because the Treasury wants their vote.

scrumpyjack wrote:

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:

Lootman wrote:If I were put in charge of handing out energy subsides to people who claim they cannot afford to heat their own home then I would first want to know if they buy alcohol or tobacco, whether they have a big-screen TV and/or a satellite/cable streaming service, and whether they take foreign trips and holidays.

Would you check if they purchased expensive toilet rolls or the cheaper unbranded? Would you also make sure they only used two squares per visit?

AiY

No cash subsidies but have jersey and mitten distribution points

Didn't have central heating when I was a boy! You just put on more clothes.

I find it totally hypocritical that one the one hand the Govt is putting up the price of energy, and banning cheap fossil fuels, and on the other hand permitting the building of the least energy efficient housing, and considering giving subsidies to poor people to heat them.

As scrumpyjack says, the advent of central heating is new phenomena which we really cannot afford, and it is quite obscene for people to heat their houses full of empty space to more than say 58 deg F.

Nimrod103 wrote:I find it totally hypocritical that one the one hand the Govt is putting up the price of energy, and banning cheap fossil fuels, and on the other hand permitting the building of the least energy efficient housing, and considering giving subsidies to poor people to heat them.

As scrumpyjack says, the advent of central heating is new phenomena which we really cannot afford, and it is quite obscene for people to heat their houses full of empty space to more than say 58 deg F.

15C? You must be joking!

Dod

88V8 wrote:From Labour, we hear predictably about a windfall tax on big oil.
V8

Sorry, but the news reports of this had me frothing at the mouth. Why? Well it was described as a one off tax.

Are they liers or incompetent? Don't they even know what their own party did when in goverment? You CAN'T have a 2'ed "one off windfall tax".

Sure the government can impose whatever taxes it desires, but a 2'ed tax of the same type as imposed in 97 can't be described as "one off".

Personally, given that this is not even the 2'ed time that the idea has been suggested as a "one off windfall tax" I regard them all as dishonest. I will note that last time it was Mr Major suggesting another "one off windfall tax", unless anyone knows of a more recent instance than 2013.

The Guardian quotes Ed Miliband as using the phrase, so possibly he must not remember being an adviser to the government back when they did impose the "one off windfall tax". Possibly they just can't count beyond one.

Urbandreamer wrote:

88V8 wrote:From Labour, we hear predictably about a windfall tax on big oil.
V8

Sorry, but the news reports of this had me frothing at the mouth. Why? Well it was described as a one off tax.

Are they liers or incompetent? Don't they even know what their own party did when in goverment? You CAN'T have a 2'ed "one off windfall tax".

Sure the government can impose whatever taxes it desires, but a 2'ed tax of the same type as imposed in 97 can't be described as "one off".

Personally, given that this is not even the 2'ed time that the idea has been suggested as a "one off windfall tax" I regard them all as dishonest. I will note that last time it was Mr Major suggesting another "one off windfall tax", unless anyone knows of a more recent instance than 2013.

The Guardian quotes Ed Miliband as using the phrase, so possibly he must not remember being an adviser to the government back when they did impose the "one off windfall tax". Possibly they just can't count beyond one.

Now there's an idea. How do you go about taxing mouth froth?
2p on a Daily Mail?

Urbandreamer wrote:While I personally agree that the state should not be subsidising things, it's not unknown.

Not entirely unknown, no. HMG spends approximately £200 billion on individual welfare benefits in the form of benefits like heating allowances etc., and about £100 billion in corporate welfare in the form of tax breaks and direct subsidies for things like procurement and transport. The fact that both have been going up in the last 10 years feels like they're not doing what they're supposed to do perhaps.

Gilgongo wrote:

Urbandreamer wrote:While I personally agree that the state should not be subsidising things, it's not unknown.

Not entirely unknown, no. HMG spends approximately £200 billion on individual welfare benefits in the form of benefits like heating allowances etc., and about £100 billion in corporate welfare in the form of tax breaks and ....

ARGH! I say again ARGH. While I was not clear I really HATE with capitals the concept that not taxing something can be described as a subsidy. It would not cost as much if it wasn't taxed, hence getting rid of the tax is NOT a subsidy. The government does subsidise (arguably bribe) people and companies to buy electric cars. It's described as a grant. I happen to like that subsidy. However a tax break is NOT a subsidy. It's a restoration.

"Allowance" or "tax break", how dare you claim either is a subsidy.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subsidy

: a grant or gift of money: such as

No doubt you would argue that standard rate tax payers are "subsidised" because at some point those who earn enough have their personal tax allowance cut!

I'm going to shout again. DON'T PLAY FAST AND LOOSE WITH THESE TERMS. You insult anyone on a low or even "standard" income.

I'm not even going to consider your corporate arguments as you regard tax breaks as a subsidy.