MSE News: Government to appeal High Court solar ruling

Cardew

undaunted wrote: »

Seems like a ridiculous waste of tax payers cash to me.

Surely all they had to do was allow the consultation period to run it's course and then make their decision - which was going to be the same anyway, regardless of what the consultation said

Wouldn't a more sensible way of looking at this issue be that the ridiculous waste of money was the challenge by the solar companies and the stupid and misguided Friends of the Earth.

The decision to cut FIT was both sensible and timely and the solar companies' sole interest was to keep their snouts in the trough for a little longer.

Given that there is a finite sum of money for FIT, if the rate of FIT is halved it means we get twice as much solar electricity generated for our money.

One would think that the Friends of the Earth might have just worked that out for themselves instead of lending respectability to the self-interested greedy solar companies case.

How people donate money to such a blinkered organisation as Friends of the Earth is amazing.

undaunted

Unfortunately I'd again tend to disagree with you.

Whilst I don't necessarily disagree with you on the decision to cut fit, the solar companies motives etc the fact remains that a "consultation period" had to take place. You can't therefore make a decision until it has done so regardless of how inconvenient that fact may be.

If the Government doesn't follow the law when it finds it inconvenient what hope is there of anyone else doing so?

As to Friends of the Earth, rightly or wrongly they have a cause they believe in & are using the law to pursue it. That is their right, as is the decision of donors to give to them.

grahamc2003

undaunted wrote: »

You can't therefore make a decision until it has done so regardless of how inconvenient that fact may be.

It's inconvenient because it isn't a fact. The higher court implied it couldn't, but that decision has been appealed, so we'll have to await the outcome of that before the law says what can and can't be done. in this case.

But anyhow, that point is academic, because the government didn't make any decisions during the consultation period (and that point is one of the points in the appeal). The government just published proposals, not made decisions.

Brummie71

Cardew wrote: »

Wouldn't a more sensible way of looking at this issue be that the ridiculous waste of money was the challenge by the solar companies and the stupid and misguided Friends of the Earth.

The decision to cut FIT was both sensible and timely and the solar companies' sole interest was to keep their snouts in the trough for a little longer.

The tariffs were always planned to drop from the start of year 3 and I don't think anyone in the industry is seriously arguing that they should be maintained at the current levels. The biggest problem is that a number of large schemes were not sufficiently advanced to be completed prior to the arbitrary cut off point, as the government utterly failed to understand the workings of the industry. These schemes have now been pulled as they don't make business sense at those prices. They may well return in the future, but the government action has slammed the industry into an emergency stop rather than a planned deceleration.

Cardew

undaunted wrote: »

Whilst I don't necessarily disagree with you on the decision to cut fit, the solar companies motives etc the fact remains that a "consultation period" had to take place. You can't therefore make a decision until it has done so regardless of how inconvenient that fact may be.

If the Government doesn't follow the law when it finds it inconvenient what hope is there of anyone else doing so?

What law would that be? statute please?

There was a consultation period fixed when nobody envisaged such a take-up of solar PV. Suddenly the situation changed and the Government took action - sensible action.

This decision was debated in Parliament on 7 Dec and a motion to stop the cuts was defeated - so it was the will of Parliament that the cuts go ahead. Nothing was raised to suggest such cuts were unlawful - not even by the those opposed to the cuts.

Like many matters that are not specifically covered in law, the plaintiffs sought and were granted a Judicial Review by the court.

A judge in the High Court does not make our law, - Parliament does - but he ruled that there were grounds put forward that raised doubts that the Goverenment had acted lawfully and it should be reviewed.

The only issue here is if the Government can make a decision during a consultation period.

John_Pierpoint

The OECD defines this FiT as a compulsory unmitigated payment, that is a complicated way of saying something the government forces you to pay and you cannot get out of it (Just like the 5% VAT you are already paying) So the amount appears as a tax and makes the government look like it is spending even more of its citizens money.
At the moment Italians are paying 7% to roll over their national debt - we Brits are paying 2%.
It speaks for itself.

undaunted

Cardew wrote: »

What law would that be? statute please?

Judges may not make the law but they do interpret it once it has been made and the article clearly states "Mr Justice Mitting said just before Christmas that the Government was "proposing to make an unlawful decision".!"

There can surely be no credible doubt that had Friends of the Earth not gone to the Courts these "proposals" would have been enacted by now.

You would appear to basically agree with me (and presumably the Judge) in your final sentence

Cardew

Brummie71 wrote: »

The biggest problem is that a number of large schemes were not sufficiently advanced to be completed prior to the arbitrary cut off point, .

Sorry that just isn't correct. That was a totally disingenous argument by the solar industry.

Look at the MCS published statistics, scores of thousands of installations in a few weeks. The total number of installations doubled in UK since the announcements of the cuts in FIT.

People were surveyed, installations fitted and registered in days.

http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/decc_reveal_deadline_week_figures_2356/

According to DECC, between December 4 and 12, a staggering 29,937 installations were registered for the feed-in tariff scheme.
Solar PV systems installed between these dates accounted for 125.93MW of the UK’s solar capacity, 80.16MW of which was sub 50kW.







The astonishing figures show that since October 31, when changes to the feed-in tariff were announced, an astronomical 351.83MW of solar capacity has been installed in the UK. In just six weeks the UK has more than doubled capacity, with 51 percent of 2011’s installed capacity put in place after DECC’s announcement.
December 12, deadline day, saw a further 95 sub 50kW installations registered on the MCS database.

grahamc2003

Interesting graph. If that carried on, it would only be a few weeks until everyone got £1500 a year in fits and the exported electricity, and had their electricity bills increased by £1700pa to pay them! (£200 going to soliciors/management consultants and others to advise on how to run the system).

Martyn1981

grahamc2003 wrote: »

'It's already been established on here ...'

Ah, must be right then. Do you have anything more substantial than posters on here telling you the cost per household is 20 fags?

This years £161m fit budget was already allocated to exiting installations in Sep of last year, so the budgets are bust already, probably by an amount nobody yet knows, but obviously scared the government enough to try chop the tariff before the consultation period was over.

But anyhow, I don't think fits should be seen in isolation. What interests me is the total cost of all these types of 'green' subsidies and initiatives, which I expect adds up well into the billions, and rising rapidly. I'd expect the total cost to each working person is well over a thousand fags a year. (and why use fags, why not the more traditional measure of spending, pounds?)

If you're not happy with Mysterons figure of approx £6 per household (is that what a packet of 20 fags costs?) then why don't you reference the correct amount?

Or are you sticking with 1,000 fags per person, is that £300 each?

Mart.