AIBU to think removing VAT from energy should include heating oil?

[WishINeverPlantedMint]

I see one of Andy Burnham's big announcements has been the removal of VAT on gas and electricity bills to reduce pressure on cost of living.

But this initiative does not apply to heating oil, used by a lot of people in rural areas for heating.

AIBU to think this is really unfair, especially considering how much heating oil has gone up in price?

What other "little things" is he going to send our way ? Please tell !

Yeah I agree on both counts. I think they would be better stepping energy costs so that the unit cost increases the more you use. Also digital IDs will make administration of public services more efficient in the long run so scrapping that makes no sense.

@WishINeverPlantedMint People who live rurally are last in line when it comes to policymaking. Politicians seem to have little understanding of how much harder it can be, how limited resources are and seem to think that residing in the countryside equates to being rich and living in a rural idyll.

Electricity is greener than gas or oil, so its also a nod to encouraging people to use it in preference to gas/oil.

How would I know but dismissing something on the basis that it is too small seems like the wrong attitude. Yes it shouldn’t be blown up as something bigger than it is, but even if it’s only a small amount a month surely that’s better nothing.

Hey, look on the bright side, OP. At least you’ll get a reduction on your electricity bill - surely that’s got to be good news?

It's £45 a year ish.

Less than £1.00 a week.

I can really go to town on that. Not. 🙄

On what basis should it be more per unit?

For fuck sake people really just want to complain don’t they?
He’s only been PM two bloody days.

im so fed up of the ongoing negativity.

Yes it’s not a huge savings. But those little savings all add up. If every single one of my bills lowered by £2-3 pounds a month that suddenly adds up to something more substantial

for the last two years it’s been constant bitching from the entire friggin public. nothing can be fixed overnight. It just can’t. And the revolving door of leadership doesn’t help anyone. 5 prime ministers in 4 years is exactly why the country is in a mess.

and the incessant moaning from everyone about the actual positive things going on is just so bloody tiresome

“we want waiting lists down” “ labour announce waiting lists are down “yeah but not enough/only because problem people removed from the list…”

“we want lower energy costs” heres something to help “well that’s not enough that’s useless”

”well what about heating oil…” here’s a scheme that tackles it “yeah well my prices have still gone up due to the war..”

”immigration is too high” labour announce its gone down significantly and small boats have dropped by 40% “yeah but that’s still too high why is there any immigration?”

“inflation should be lower” labour announce its dropped to 2.6% “yeah but that’s only .2% drop that’s not good enough….”

Let’s start looking at positives for the good in things.

It is worse than nothing. A £45/yr tax cut while his govt needs to raise taxes is just rearranging deckchairs. It says to me that he’s not focused on govts power to do really big things, and sees it, as many Labour MPs do, as a sort of benefits office that exists to take money from people and then dole it back out again in small amounts here and there according to what will get a headline or who as a hard luck story.

Blair’s first announcement was Bank of England independence which lowered borrowing costs for everyone by (collectively) tens of billions. Burnham’s was £2 bus fairs.

@Danhausenrocks

If every single one of my bills lowered by £2-3 pounds a month that suddenly adds up to something more substantial

Are you a taxpayer? If so, it’s circular.

There are ways to lower bills by increasing supply and fixing structural problems, and there is small scale tinkering like this.

I’m still hoping Burnham will surprise me, but it’s not an auspicious start. This is not how you get growth in every postcode.

Your oil prices are on you & Trump - not our government.

Trump obviously keeps making them go up.

But it's your fault you didn't order two weeks ago when they were right back down to normal. I followed the news carefully and ordered during the recent cease fire at a very good price - 51ppl.

of course I’m a Uk taxpayer. Why wouldn’t I be?

it’s a day one announcement from him. What needs to be done is separating gas and electricity rates, but that can’t be done in one day. So I’m not going to be screaming and bitching that he hasn’t dramatically lowered my costs on day one!

So if you are a taxpayer, at a reasonable amount, what this has done is transfer money from you to you. From all taxpayers to everyone who uses electricity.

It’s not the burning priority is it? The first few policies set a tone. It worries me that the tone Burnham wants to set is these small-bore redistributive measures, meanwhile his big ten year plan is going to come at some future date.

This from someone who has wanted to be leader for decades.

His other big idea is releasing power from central govt, but also increasing state control of the economy and establishing a big Office of No 10. It just doesn’t seem very coherent, and the ideas are borrowed from the 1970s.

Totally agree that heating oil should be price capped. To be fair to Starmer, he did introduce financial help for low income folk on oil heating, shortly after the start of the war. I would have preferred to see a price cap though. We have seen blatant profiteering by suppliers over the last few months. The price nearly doubled in the first week of the conflict.

No. It's that about 25% of households don't have mains gas.

It really is just a nonsense, and will do nothing to help in real terms. What about the standing charges that people are paying daily? Doing something about that, would have made a real difference, but no. Nothing is really being done to help imo.

Or maybe it's virtue signalling to penalise oil and gas users instead of so called "clean" electricity which is way overpriced

if the standing charge was removed that would really help, but vat will make minimal difference as it will always be lost im the ever increasing rises

It benefits everyone, well nearly everyone at least (unless you’re fully self sufficient for electricity). People moan when they offer support to those who need it most, saying it doesn’t help those working families who struggle despite middling incomes, this helps them.

Or to phrase it differently, maybe it’s to encourage the uptake of heat pumps which can be at least partly powered by renewables, to which the main opposition is the cost of running them. Fossil fuel boilers owners aren’t being penalised as their situation stays the same.

It’s also paid for by everyone.

It’s all deckchairs.

Moving money from taxpayers to those who use electricity.

A tiny amount.

And a VAT reduction to make electricity more affordable, one reason for the cost being other taxes and levies that the govt has put on.

This kind of thing a pointless distraction from more important things govt should focus on, like expanding energy production or rethinking how we meet our net zero commitments.

Most people use gas or oil to heat homes. All electric is less common

Could be quite substantial for people who recharge a couple of electric cars at home.

£45 a year. That’s an average of 86p a week. I’m NOT going to notice that.

And I never get on a bus so the cap on ticket price won’t benefit me either.