Iain Dale 10am - 1pm
Tory MP: Government's net zero plan 'the stuff of madness'
19 October 2021, 22:30
Tory MP blasts govt's net zero plan
The cost of the government's net zero plan to the taxpayer is 'truly colossal' this Conservative MP fumes.
Craig Mackinlay MP was speaking to Iain Dale following the Prime Minister's speech at the Global Investment Summit, where he expressed the need for greater attention on climate action.
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The chair of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group didn't hold back in criticising the government's net zero plan.
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He began by attacking the promise of green jobs, referencing the building of wind farms in Scotland.
"The entirety of the construction, the steel and everything else is being produced in China!"
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The Conservative MP added that "the costs are truly colossal" when it comes to retrofitting British households.
He said that calculations bring the cost at "over £30,000 per household" which is a roughly £960 billion bill for the taxpayer.
Mr Mackinley told Iain that Brits will "be sitting around their tepid radiators wondering why on earth they wanted this when their old gas boiler could have been replaced at a much [more] reasonable cost."
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"You are a Conservative MP and in the last four or five minutes you haven't said a single positive thing about Conservative environmental policy" Iain noted.
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"I want to leave this planet in a better state than we found it" Mr Mackinley said, but insisted "there are better ways of doing it.
"I think we need a more positive nuclearisation strategy...hydrogen has a future."
"Am I a-dishing a conservative policy?" He asked.
"I don't actually feel this is a very Conservative policy when you're asking my constituents to be colder and poorer."