In a stark warning to Ed Miliband, Chris O’Shea said that removing Net Zero levies from electricity bills would punish the poor and amount to a “terrible distortion of the market”.
It comes amid reports that the Energy Secretary is considering stripping green levies from electricity in a bid to encourage the adoption of heat pumps.
Instead, the costs would be moved on to gas, making a boiler more expensive to run.
Mr O’Shea, the chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica, warned Mr Miliband to resist such an “outrageous” overhaul and instead focus on protecting billpayers from the soaring cost of Net Zero.
“It’s a preposterous idea,” Mr O’Shea told the Telegraph. “The idea you’d put the levies on gas bills will mean those better-off people with heat pumps will be subsidised by those poorer people with gas boilers. That’s nonsense.
“I think those of us with the broadest shoulders should help those of us who have the most need.
“To put them on gas bills would be an abomination, outrageous and a terrible distortion of the market. It would also be unfair because the people [who have] gas boilers the longest will also be those who can least afford to pay higher bills.
“I have heard the argument that it will encourage more people to use electricity. But encouraging people to use subsidised electricity by forcing gas users to pay just doesn’t make any sense.”
Mr O’Shea said the Government should shift the cost of green levies on to general taxation rather than creating an energy bill divide between households....<<<Read More>>>...
