LABOUR’S new green targets will cost every family in Britain more than £3,000, a Government dossier has warned. The decision by ministers to sign up to “unachievable” EU pledges on renewable energy will leave taxpayers with a £75 billion bill. Most of this will be passed on to householders in higher costs.

A typical family will see its fuel bills soar by £214 a year as power firms switch to expensive technology, such as windfarms, to hit the targets by 2020. However, the report, slipped out without publicity, warns that the final bill is likely to be higher still, as costs such as the price of upgrading the national grid to cope with new energy sources were not included.

The study, carried out by respected energy consultants Poyry for the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, also reveals the targets will cost Britain far more than any other EU country.

Neil O’Brien, director of the think tank Open Europe, said ministers had failed to understand the implications for ordinary families when they signed Britain up to the agreement. He said civil servants were “in despair” about how Britain was going to meet a target which many experts believe is unachievable.

He added: “People’s electricity bills are going to soar because of this EU target. The EU have chosen the least effective and most costly way to go green and we are all going to have to pay as a result. “Incredibly, the Government don’t seem to have realised what they were signing up to. “Britain seems to have got a raw deal, paying in more than any other country while other countries will actually make money out of it. We are handing over a huge amount of money and it’s not clear that we will get anything for it.

“Civil servants are in despair about how on earth they are supposed to meet this target and how much it is all going to cost.”

--------
Five million drivers will pay £50 or £90 extra in road tax next year because of the Government’s covert decision to include older family cars in new higher tax bands. Treasury figures show that a million of those will incur at least another £130 rise the following year, meaning that their road tax will have more than doubled over two years. By 2010, 16 million drivers will be paying more than they are now, contradicting the Government’s claim in the Budget in March that “as a result of these changes the majority of drivers will be better or no worse off”.

The Times disclosed on Wednesday that the Treasury had quietly abolished the exemption from higher road-tax rates for cars that emit more than 180g of CO2 per kilometre and were registered between March 2001 and March 2006.  Many small family cars, including some models of the Ford Focus, Renault Mégane and Rover 75, will lose their exemption and will cost up to £90 more next year.

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, claimed in his Budget speech that the reform of vehicle excise duty was designed “to encourage manufacturers to produce cleaner cars” and to “encourage drivers to choose the least polluting car”. He made no mention of his decision to penalise owners of older cars. These cars will become harder to sell because they will lose up to £1,000 of their residual value as a result of the increases in road tax.