Tories' gas madness to cost you £100 a year

Green campaigners called it a "reckless dash for gas" that even Energy Secretary Ed Davey admitted would add £100 a year to families' bills.

The government plans to introduce the Bill to Parliament next week.

In it are plans to create a "capacity market" that ministers say will protect Britain from future fuel shortages through auctions with privateers, money to support nuclear and "low-carbon" power and proposals for a state-owned company to handle the contracts that govern those subsidies.

But green campaigners were scathing about ministers' decision not to include a legally binding commitment to shift to renewable energy in the Bill.

Greenpeace said the government had kicked "clean energy into the long grass" by putting off that decision until 2016.

Its executive director John Sauven said: "By failing to agree to any carbon target for the power sector until after the next election David Cameron has allowed a militant tendency within his own ranks to derail the Energy Bill.

"It's a blatant assault on the greening of the UK economy that leaves consumers vulnerable to rising gas prices, and sends billions of pounds of clean-tech investment to our economic rivals.

"The stakes couldn't be higher for our climate, our bills, and new green jobs, yet politicians could not be making a greater hash of it."

And Communist Party of Britain general secretary Rob Griffiths said the Bill would drive "millions more people into fuel poverty in order to subsidise the super profits of the energy monopolies.

"Far from being a green deal this will be yet another bad deal for household energy users.

"Redundancies in the steel industry, announced today, also bring home the impact of rising energy prices on productive industry."

Green MP Caroline Lucas echoed that point, saying that the Bill would force Britain to rely on expensive, imported gas.

Friends of the Earth executive director Andy Atkins said Mr Davey's announcement "banged the final nail in the coffin of Mr Cameron's pledge to lead the greenest government ever."

Unison national officer for energy Matthew Lay said: "The Bill is simply a sticking plaster on an open wound.

"It is a bitter disappointment because customers cannot keep waiting for solutions to address the huge problems facing the energy industry.

"Only radical reform of the way energy is produced and delivered to households will deliver some relief.

"Too many people in Britain are worried about keeping warm this winter, let alone in 20 years' time."