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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but if the Conservative Party has any new ideas on energy or environment it hid them exceptionally well at their party conference.
The speeches of prime minister David Cameron, chancellor George Osborne, energy minister Matt Hancock and environment secretary Liz Truss all passed without a single new thought on green matters. The most we learned was that Osborne still thinks fracking is cracking and Truss really, really likes apples. “I will not rest until the British apple is at the very top of the tree,” was her closing, if not rousing, line.
Energy minister Baroness Verma made a virtue out of a necessity at a fringe event I chaired on Tuesday. The Tory focus, she said, was on continuing to deliver reform of the energy market, providing stable and steady policy. Of course that’s important in attracting the many billions of pounds of investment needed to build an sustainable energy system.
But what about the awful mess the Green Deal energy efficiency scheme is in? Labour made proposals on that. What about the rollercoaster ride endured by solar developers, who are shortly heading back to the courts to challenge ministers?
I can think of two explanations as to why the energy has gone out of Conservative green policy. The first is political. Labour’s energy price freeze may have been derided as “economically insane” but it’s hit the bullseye with voters, who loathe the big six as much as their big bills.
So the Tories may be choosing to keep their heads down: say nothing about their future energy policy and let others attack Labour. It’s analogous to Labour “forgetting” to speak about the deficit, a weak point for them.
The argument in favour of a heads-down strategy is even stronger on the environment. Terrible floods following flood defence budget cuts, the horsemeat scandal, the badger cull and, perhaps most of all, a climate-sceptic environment secretary in Owen Paterson, have made the Tories toxic in many green minds. Ceding energy and environment is risky, but the political calculation may be that it is one worth taking.
The other explanation is an ideological horror of state intervention and regulation. The UK had one of the most liberalised energy markets in the world, but the world has changed. Carbon emissions must be cut to tackle climate change and - in the absence of an effective carbon price - the market cannot deliver it.
“I am a free marketeer,” one Conservative MP told me. “But we don’t have a free [energy] market.” Free market principles forbid governments from picking winners from nuclear, gas, coal, wind, solar, shale and other energy technologies. This government says it is not, but that is a pretence, another MP said. The special deal cooked up for EDF’s nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point clearly shows that.
Bending over backwards to maintain that pretence has led to perverse consequences. The auction for back-up power (so-called capacity) this autumn should support relatively clean gas, but - because ministers don’t pick winners - it will dole out millions to dirty coal. “Why not just ban coal?” asked the MP.
Being honest about the interventions needed, while leaving some room in future for the market to deliver lowest-cost power it can, should be possible. But intervention is not Tory instinct. Nonetheless, the party should still use it in specific and vital cases like energy, where market failures exist.
Former Conservative energy minister Greg Barker said as much in teasing his Lib Dem boss recently. Barker told the New Statesman he had had “a very good relationship” with energy secretary Ed Davey, but he is “a bit right-wing for me. I would favour slightly more radical market interventions.” Barker ought to know, having overseen the failure of the Green Deal, which was a doomed attempt to create a market in home energy efficiency.
Whether the vacuum sucking the oxygen from Tory green policy is due to a heads-down strategy or a difficulty in admitting the state does need to intervene when markets fail, there is still time to fill it before the election. Cameron’s blink-and-you-missed it reference - the UK is “leading not following on climate change” - implies a responsibility for action, not avoidance.
So here’s a suggestion. David Cameron wants to renegotiate the UK’s relationship with the European Union, so why not add the broken EU emissions trading scheme to his list of Euro wrongs to be righted? A working carbon market that cuts emissions with maximum economic efficiency: what could be more Conservative than that?
