Greenwatch

David Toke on the Green’s rising star and Reform threats

Polanski’s star outshines other Greens

We’re definitely in the era of populist, charismatic politicians, and Zack Polanski is the Green answer to the populists of the right. Of course, the Green Party will have to work out some arrangement with the nascent Your Party; otherwise, the two parties will cancel each other out in their best options for winning seats at the next General Election.

But Polanski has put the Green MPs in the shade. That’s no mean trick for somebody who is not an MP! For example, I counted the number of mentions in the Guardian for Polanski and Carla Denyer, the Green Leader that he replaced. Denyer got 32 mentions against Polanski’s 44. He also seems to be lighting up our TV screens, at least as often, and apparently with greater razzamatazz than the leaders he replaced.

There was even a story in the Guardian about polling evidence suggesting that the Greens had a good lead in London over the Labour Party. Could Polanski be the Green candidate for Mayor, or even be bound for the Mayoral prize? Well, maybe not assuming that Your Party puts up a candidate, something which will cramp the Green Party’s vote. Watch out for a lot of arguments between Your Party and the Greens when the London election comes around again! Mayor Sadiq Khan (assuming he stands again) will probably be saved by the scrapping between these two parties who are competing for what is a largely overlapping set of voters!

Can Reform cancel Miliband’s renewable programme?

People have been wondering about the impact of Reform’s Richard Tice’s threat to cancel soon-to-be-issued Government contracts for large-scale renewable energy. Is Energy Secretary Ed Miliband quaking in his boots? I doubt it. Essentially, I think that Tice’s threats are hot air, useful only as a bit of PR coverage. I am sure lawyers for renewable energy companies will have told their clients to ignore Tice and carry on as planned with their bids.

Tice specifically targeted the contracts that will soon be awarded under the Government’s current allocation round for renewable energy contracts (called ‘AR7’). Most of the contracts will go to onshore wind, solar farms and offshore wind projects. The project developers will receive ‘contracts for difference’ (CfDs), which will guarantee generators specific payments per MWh for 20 years.

This Tice threat is, of course, nonsense, although it rhymes with the behaviour of some populist right-wing governments in the West. Perhaps the difference is that Reform will not be so stupid as to repeat these experiences. In 2018, the (then) newly elected Progressive Conservative Government in Ontario cancelled renewable energy contracts that had been awarded. Yes, that’s right, the same Government that now thinks SMRs are the way ahead!

UK law is very straightforward. UK Common law rules against so-called ‘retrospective’ action by the Government that would penalise people or businesses who took action in line with previous Government contracts or laws. Could a future Reform Government cancel renewable energy contracts if it passed a new Act of Parliament saying so? No, it could not, or at least not without costing the taxpayer extremely large sums of money. They could pass as many laws as they liked, but the courts would take no notice, and the Government would have to pay punitive damages for cancellation of contracts issued by a previous Government.

In fact, when interviewed by one of the more forensic journalists (Evan Davis of Radio 4) Tice appeared to backtrack in recognition of these legal facts of life. He merely stated (what we would assume anyway), namely that a Reform Government would not be at all accommodating if developers wanted to alter the terms of the contract. In the past, the Government has, for example, allowed some offshore wind developers from AR5 to enter part of the projects again in the next round (AR6) after interest rates went up. They wanted, and got, a better price than they had in the previous allocation round.

Will Tice’s intervention increase the bidding price for renewable energy contracts because of perceived extra uncertainty? I doubt it. Yes, developers would be aware that they would not be able to get variations on contract terms. On the other hand, they can decide not to implement the contracts without penalty (which they would suffer under the present Government policy). That’s because it can be assumed that there will not be any auction rounds for the duration of a Reform Government, after which the slate will be clean for future bids. So that would be a reduction in project risk.