Michael Gove warns against treating net zero like ‘religious crusade’ as he calls for clampdown on green measures | The Sun
MICHAEL Gove has warned against "treating the cause of the environment as a religious crusade" amid a major Net Zero backlash.
After the Tories saw off Labour in the Uxbridge by-election by hammering the hated Ulez levy on drivers, MPs have called for a major rethink on green taxes.
Today the senior Cabinet Minister broke cover urging a slowdown on green planning targets.
He warned: "My own strong view is that we're asking too much too quickly."
The Housing Secretary told The Sunday Telegraph that a new ban on landlords from renting out their homes unless they pay to increase the energy performance certificate rating of their properties should be pushed back past 2028.
The upgrades would require fitting a heat pump, providing insulation or installing solar panels, which can cost tens of thousands of pounds.
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And he admitted he did not know whether a ban on new petrol cars after 2030 was "perfectly calibrated".
Mr Gove was joined by ex-Business Minister Jacob Rees Mogg who told GB News on Sunday: "what works is getting rid of unpopular, expensive green policies".
Mr Rees Mogg urged a delay or scrapping of three key Net Zero policies.
He said: "I would certainly get rid of the pledge to get rid of petrol cars in 2030. That was done a few years ago in different circumstances.
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“I would get rid of the plans in the Energy Bill to put extra charges on people and have extra certificates for people selling their houses, owning property and so on.
"I would get rid of things that apply direct costs.
“Having a long term ambition for net zero is different and working towards it but we need to think about what other countries are doing, what is proportionate and what is affordable."
Senior Tories have seen their unexpected retention of Boris Johnson’s old seat in West London as a landmark moment for the battle against expensive green policies.
PM Rishi Sunak is under growing pressure to water down pledges designed to help the UK meet its pledge of having a net zero carbon economy by 2050.
Tory MP Craig Mackinlay, chairman of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, has suggested delaying the ban on new petrol and diesel cars, pushing it back "at least" five years to 2035.
But ex-Minister Zac Goldsmith hit back; "to use these recent results to advocate abandonment of the UK’s previous environmental leadership is cynical and idiotic."
He added: “It would also be politically suicidal, given the very deep and wide support for action on the environment that exists right across the electorate.
“And it is immoral, given that both government and opposition acknowledge the gravity of the crisis we face.”
Quizzed about Mr Gove’s comments on on Times Radio, local government minister Lee Rowley said: "I think what Michael was saying was that there is a group of people in politics and a group of campaigning organisations that do treat it like a religion, they do treat it with an evangelical fervour, which I'm not sure is the right thing to do.
"You can't have a reasonable debate with people."
He added: "People shouting and screaming like Just Stop Oil do and saying things which are just fundamentally not correct is not actually going to get us any further down this journey or any quicker."
Asked whether the Government should slow down on its approach to net zero, Mr Rowley added: "We are already doing a significant amount of staging of this because when this was brought in in 2019, when the net zero target was passed by Parliament, we said there would be a series of interventions that we would do over the course of 30 years – half my adult lifetime effectively.
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"And some of those things we will do early – we've decarbonised most of the grid, we've got rid of most coal already.
"But then there will be things that happen in the 2020s, things that happen in the 2030s, so we've got to do that in a staged way."