Grantham Institute reaction to Spring Statement

Commenting on the Spring Statement today by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Bob Ward, Policy and Communications Director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said: “The Chancellor correctly highlighted the potential impacts on households and businesses of the disruption to supplies of oil and gas caused by the conflict in the Middle East. This is a warning once again of the risks of the UK being dependent on volatile international markets for fossil fuels, and the value of increasing domestic supplies of clean energy.

“The rise in prices of oil and natural gas over the past couple of days will potentially create higher prices for UK consumers and windfall profits for producers in the North Sea. Similar circumstances following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to previous Conservative governments spending tens of billions of taxpayers’ money on protecting consumers and the introduction of the Energy Profits Levy to claw back some of the money. The Chancellor will no doubt bear this in mind when she meets with North Sea bosses tomorrow.”