Reform UK finally proposed a policy - and it’s an economic disaster
17 February 2025, 08:22 | Updated: 17 February 2025, 08:25
This week, Reform had its first stab at new policy since the last election hoping to provide some answers to the UK’s high energy prices.
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Although immigration has been the key to the Reform’s rise, deputy leader Richard Tice thinks anti-net zero rhetoric is their next big break.
However, what they hoped would be a series of popular pledges to stop controversial local infrastructure ahead of the May elections has placed them firmly in a minefield of anger. In fact, the proposals received such backlash that they’ve already been downgraded to “direction of travel” rather than official policy.
Reform’s solution to the energy crisis and rising bills is - and I’m not kidding - to: add taxes to renewable energy companies and in turn bill payers; add taxes to farmers who put up solar farms; ban battery energy storage systems which help make bills more affordable; and - just for good measure - force new grid infrastructure to be buried underground, where bill-payers will have to pay for the up to tenfold increase in cost.
These policies have angered everyone from passionate environmentalists, to die-hard free-marketers, to even net zero sceptics all questioning the logic.
If you want to make energy bills more affordable, you cannot add taxes to existing energy. All retrospective taxes on renewable energy would do is chill investment in future projects at a time when we need more domestic energy, leading to further shortages and in turn higher bills.
If we want to make bills more affordable, we need to tackle our exposure to European gas markets which Putin controls. This requires unleashing homegrown energy that can make us more energy-secure and self-reliant. Additionally, innovative new technology Reform wants to ban, such as battery storage, must be allowed to play a role in boosting productivity and lowering bills.
Finally, banning all new pylons and ripping out existing ones could cost households £385 each. Requiring all new transmission cables to be put underground will take significantly longer and leave households paying more. Not to mention our outdated grid infrastructure is another reason for high energy bills, as we have to pay for wind generators to switch off.
Energy bills are too high and must come down. But, Reform’s first stab at policy instead of just rhetoric has failed at the first hurdle. Whatever comes next, this will almost certainly cast a long shadow on their policy credibility.
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Max Anderson is Head of Communications at the Conservative Environment Network.
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