Things can only get worse
It used to be double glazing salesmen we caricatured for being just too high-pressure. But increasingly they are being outdone by the photovoltaic industry. The latest example comes from a Lancashire-based company that goes by the name of Solar Energy Savings (SES) or, more accurately, went by the name of Solar Energy Savings.
The company has just been ordered into liquidation by the government Insolvency Service, after a detailed investigation revealed it had been engaged in some very nasty sales practices. These included “high pressure sales tactics, misrepresentation and other illegal or irregular selling practices.”
According to the Insolvency Service, customers were falsely led to believe the solar panel systems SES offered were part of a government backed or officially authorised scheme providing 30% discounts.
Here is a surprise. The company salesmen apparently consistently overstated the performance of the panels and the likely returns on investment
With accounting records apparently designed to prevent the Insolvency Service investigators from obtaining accurate information, the company was deemed to have “persistently and deliberately flouted statutory regulations”and “widely promoted a non-existent scheme in order to induce members of the public into signing contracts.”
I understand that even before the official Feed In Tariff scheme was launched, the Office of Fair Trading were receiving over 10,000 complaints a year about PV cowboys. It will only get worse.
No harm done
I have in front of me a Financial Times story. The headline reads “Green policies put high cost on steelmakers.” The opening paragraph states: “Green policies are costing British steelmakers and other heavy electricity users at least double what some of their main European rivals are paying, a UK government report from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has found.”
Cause for alarm and immediate reversal of policies, you might think? Er, no, not quite. Because the entire report was effectively comparing apples and pears. Whilst entirely ignoring other pertinent UK policies.
For a start, this BIS report was calculating possible power prices in Britain not today, but in 2020. And comparing them with mainland Europe prices in 2012. Blithely assuming that no other European countries might introduce ecological policies over the next eight years which had any impact on fuel prices.
It also conveniently forgot that, in Budget 2012, it was announced £250m of measures would be introduced from 2013, specifically to reduce the effect of green policies upon the most electricity-intensive industries.
Not I think the BIS department at its finest. But it did afford an opportunity for some rent-a-mouths in the steel industry to wax indignant upon how hard done they are, and why they need more subsidies. So, no real harm done.
Mild scepticism
In my August diary, I expressed some mild scepticism about the likely take-up levels of the forthcoming government Green Deal policy. This will enable householders to take out loans to fund insulation measures, paying back the sums borrowed – plus interest – from the subsequent fuel savings. A neat idea. Apart from those interest repayments.
Because at the anticipated median borrowing rate of 7.5%, refunding a £10,000 loan over 25 years would end up with monthly repayments of almost £900 a year. Contrast that with the average household fuel bill of £1,310. And it begins to sound rather less appealing.
Even before it launches next month, ministers are obviously becoming rather wary as to just how successful their flagship policy might be. When first announced in the heady days of 2010 when the Coalition came into office, the official forecast was that in consequence by 2015 up to 100,000 would be employed in the insulation industry in Britain. Last month ministers had quietly downgraded that number to 60,000. And if you ask the people running the insulation industry, they reckon that they will be lucky to see half that number of employees in 2015.
Eager to please
The Conservative Party has long portrayed itself as super-vigilant about helping overseas workers – particularly those of the blue collar variety – to come to Britain. An absolute numbers ceiling has been placed on jobs for immigrants. This has won the applause of redtop newspapers like the Sun, Star or Daily Express.
This policy does not apparently find favour with energy minister (and former Party deputy chairman) Charles Hendry. According to the publicly available minutes of a recent Nuclear Industry Programme Management Board, which he apparently regularly attends, Hendry was told amongst the biggest “constraints holding back new nuclear construction” were UK skills shortages. The meeting noted “there had been a decline of capability in the UK, and the UK nuclear industry has lost its international edge”.
Ever anxious to please, Hendry said he wanted to hear from the nuclear industry what action was needed from the government. In particular, he specifically offered “to engage with the Home Office on removing barriers to overseas workers where specific skills were required.”
I am sure the desire to assist the French government-owned Elecricite de France to build loss-making power plants with overseas labour can only win plaudits from the high- minded and humanitarian editorial staff who each day publish our tabloid newspapers.
