UK
Jacob Rees-Mogg gets schooled by green energy boss after fossil fuel subsidies clash
'Have you not done your homework?'
10 May, 2024
Green Politics
Left Foot Forward
Jacob Rees-Mogg was schooled over fossil fuel subsidies by green energy boss Dale Vince after the pair clashed on net zero during an episode of the Tory MP’s GB News show.
The Tory MP for North East Somerset is out-spoken on being anti-net zero, recently calling the policy a “fantasy” during his GB News programme which he has been hosting on the right-wing news channel for over a year now.
Last week Dale Vince, the founder of Ecotricity, one the UK’s leading suppliers of green energy, was invited onto an episode of Rees-Mogg’s Moggologue to discuss the topic.
The pair clashed as Rees-Mogg argued net zero could crush British business and that the technology was not ready for it, which Vince disputed.
Debating the cost of using renewable energy Dale Vince claimed over £16bn a year was spent on subsidising the fossil fuel industry, according to a report by the International Monetary Fund.
Rees-Mogg claimed this was “nonsense” and that no fossil fuel subsidies were handed out. He argued that they were tax breaks not subsidies and that the two were “completely different”, before cutting off the interview telling Vince to “do your homework”.
The energy boss did, and hit back with a video in which he explains how tax breaks are subsidies, as laid out in a piece of Brexit legislation passed when Rees-Mogg himself was Brexit Minister.
Vince refers to a piece of Brexit legislation, the Subsidy Control Act 2022, which replaced EU laws with new British legislation which he said lays out that tax breaks are in fact counted as subsidies.
In the video Vince said: “It begs the question, Mr Mogg, were you not paying attention when you were Brexit Minister passing pieces of legislation, did you not know that it was EU rules that say that tax breaks are subsidies and UK rules as well, both inside and outside the EU? Have you not done your homework?”
The New Economics Foundation has estimated that oil and gas extractors could receive up to £18.5bn in tax relief between 2023 and 2026, while the UK government gave fossil fuel companies £20bn more in support than renewables from 2015 to 2023, research found.
Campaigners have said that owners of the Rosebank development, a massive new, controversial oilfield in the North Sea, are set to receive around £3bn in tax breaks from the UK government.
The british green energy industrialist was praised online for his comeback.
A professor of law wrote on X: “Indeed, and a tax break can also be a subsidy (provided that it is specific) under the rules of the blessed WTO, which Rees-Mogg used to praise so highly. It’s Rees-Mogg who did not do his homework here.”
The Labour Business group: “Another piece of reality confronting @Jacob_Rees_Mogg on his TV show. Nice work @DaleVince. Think JRM must need another lie down.”
Another X user wrote: “Rees-Mogg is one of those people (much like Johnson) who, because he is posh and speaks in a posh accent, makes others believe he is clever and well-informed. It’s a form of intimidation imo. In reality it’s all a facade.”
Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward
Green Politics
Left Foot Forward
Jacob Rees-Mogg was schooled over fossil fuel subsidies by green energy boss Dale Vince after the pair clashed on net zero during an episode of the Tory MP’s GB News show.
The Tory MP for North East Somerset is out-spoken on being anti-net zero, recently calling the policy a “fantasy” during his GB News programme which he has been hosting on the right-wing news channel for over a year now.
Last week Dale Vince, the founder of Ecotricity, one the UK’s leading suppliers of green energy, was invited onto an episode of Rees-Mogg’s Moggologue to discuss the topic.
The pair clashed as Rees-Mogg argued net zero could crush British business and that the technology was not ready for it, which Vince disputed.
Debating the cost of using renewable energy Dale Vince claimed over £16bn a year was spent on subsidising the fossil fuel industry, according to a report by the International Monetary Fund.
Rees-Mogg claimed this was “nonsense” and that no fossil fuel subsidies were handed out. He argued that they were tax breaks not subsidies and that the two were “completely different”, before cutting off the interview telling Vince to “do your homework”.
The energy boss did, and hit back with a video in which he explains how tax breaks are subsidies, as laid out in a piece of Brexit legislation passed when Rees-Mogg himself was Brexit Minister.
Vince refers to a piece of Brexit legislation, the Subsidy Control Act 2022, which replaced EU laws with new British legislation which he said lays out that tax breaks are in fact counted as subsidies.
In the video Vince said: “It begs the question, Mr Mogg, were you not paying attention when you were Brexit Minister passing pieces of legislation, did you not know that it was EU rules that say that tax breaks are subsidies and UK rules as well, both inside and outside the EU? Have you not done your homework?”
The New Economics Foundation has estimated that oil and gas extractors could receive up to £18.5bn in tax relief between 2023 and 2026, while the UK government gave fossil fuel companies £20bn more in support than renewables from 2015 to 2023, research found.
Campaigners have said that owners of the Rosebank development, a massive new, controversial oilfield in the North Sea, are set to receive around £3bn in tax breaks from the UK government.
The british green energy industrialist was praised online for his comeback.
A professor of law wrote on X: “Indeed, and a tax break can also be a subsidy (provided that it is specific) under the rules of the blessed WTO, which Rees-Mogg used to praise so highly. It’s Rees-Mogg who did not do his homework here.”
The Labour Business group: “Another piece of reality confronting @Jacob_Rees_Mogg on his TV show. Nice work @DaleVince. Think JRM must need another lie down.”
Another X user wrote: “Rees-Mogg is one of those people (much like Johnson) who, because he is posh and speaks in a posh accent, makes others believe he is clever and well-informed. It’s a form of intimidation imo. In reality it’s all a facade.”
Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward
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