He suggests an affinity to Green politics in your screenshot. Regardless, I don’t think this question affects the depressing fundamental truth that plenty of people who see themselves as progressive and environmentalist have frankly moronic views about cycling/transport policy more generally.

Thanks for taking the point. I think the confusion was caused by Tim Leunig (bizarrely given the wider policy context) only talking about electricity and ignoring gas. The Nesta and CCC quotes were much more on point.

(For what it’s worth, as VAT is charged as a percentage and gas is cheaper than electricity, a blanket removal of VAT on energy bills would still reduce the gap between gas and electricity prices — although it’d be much more sensible to weight any measure to reduce costs towards electricity).

Madeleine Gabriel and Nigel Topping do then (rightly) distinguish between reducing electricity bills (a good idea) and reducing gas bills (a bad idea), but Tim Leunig and the unnamed former official only mention electricity bills.

Thank you for the reply. It’s much appreciated.

Your article centres on negative commentary on the possibility of removing VAT on electricity bills, which is 100% a good idea in carbon footprint terms. See annotated screenshot below.

If even the Guardian can’t get this sort of thing right, what hope is there for well-informed discussion of decarbonisation.

The biggest single obstacle to decarbonising British homes is that gas is too cheap and electricity is too expensive. Anything to shift that is a good thing.

I don’t think there’s any inconsistency in not caring in the slightest about Watkins’s death on an emotional level, while also thinking it’s a serious problem that the prison was run in such a way that this could happen and that those who killed him should face criminal sanctions.

The battery has a small catch to hold it in place, which an averagely strong person could probably break with their bare hands. And given the new retail price (see screenshot; even higher than I said) it’d definitely be worth stealing on its own. It’s totally normal to remove it when parked.

Not safe in terms of theft that is (the battery for my bike retails at over £500).

Also worth noting the disproportionate negative impact on disabled people who need electric assist. May be of interest to @wheelsforwellbeing.org.uk

FWIW I do agree we need more social housing specifically but (i) market rate housing doesn’t usually require public money to build it which should make it a lot easier to get it built and (ii) many people are struggling with housing need but are a long way off being eligible for social housing.

If the rents seem too high that looks very much like a supply/demand issue to me — which can be solved by building more homes.

This is anecdotal I realise, but as a former resident of a social housing block it seemed that flats seemed to be left empty for about six months between tenants. No idea why. However I doubt many private landlords would just shoulder a six month void like that.

And as you say keeping the hit of up-front SDLT for non-owner-occupied homes will be good if you want to give owner-occupiers a relative buying power boost.

Yes I can see that — so someone who paid tuppence h’penny in SDLT 40 years ago doesn’t “get away with it” — but it’d also be politically harder.

Yes the big up front cost of SDLT is a factor in stagnation in the property market, whereas an annual property tax based on value would actually encourage downsizing over the longer term. It feels like it could be genuinely good policy….

That makes sense, as there’d be an obvious unfairness to starting to charge someone who’s recently paid SDLT on their purchase the ongoing SDLT replacement as well.

Also the replacement seemingly wouldn’t apply to additional homes; presumably the deterrence of SDLT up front is seen as good there.

Yes it works for that, but probably less well for immediate government cash flow.