GREEN stealth taxes represent a significant factor on household fuel bills.

A huge 15.3 per cent or £195 a year goes on “environment and social costs”.

When it comes to electricity the cost increases to a thumping great 25.5 per cent a year.

And for all that money taken from consumers for various green schemes, private companies took an eye-watering £6.3 billion last year because the Government refuses to listen to reason.

But domestic fuel users are not out of the woods yet. Gas-fired power stations, which still provided 35.7 per cent of our electricity in 2020, have had Government approval to use biogas, a fuel derived from vegetable matter that is a highly expensive production method and will come into effect this spring, with further huge cost implications for bill payers.

Many people will have never heard of the capacity mechanism, which subsidises the owners of electricity storage and generating plants that can be brought onstream at short notice to make up for a shortage of wind and solar power.

But gas and even coal-powered stations have been paid eye-watering amounts to generate electricity when the National Grid is all too often short of electricity.

Last November, when consumers were worrying about paying their fuel bills, coal and gas plants were paid £2,000 per MWh to make up the shortfall – 40 times the usual market price.

At the time of writing this letter, the Government has just announced it will not cut the VAT on gas and electric because it favours the richest.

They must have got that one out of a Christmas cracker.

MIKE FRY

Upton