ZERO VAT ON ELECTRICITY BILLS

There’s one thing that our new Prime Minister and I have in common and that’s our loathing of Thatcherism. (Mouthwash me!).

Privatisation of all our utilities was the worst thing that could have happened to the UK but what I’d really like to know is this – what happened to all the money raised from the sale of these industries to private companies/investors?  What did Thatcher do with it?

Andy Pandy’s gone top of the league by starting his premiership with a few gimmicky bones thrown to dogs in a bid to garner popularity with the masses. My eye’s lit up to see the headline ‘VAT to be cut on household energy bills’. This headline now appears to have been specifically updated to include the word ‘electricity’ in the title.

Marvellous! Just what we all need to help with the rising cost of living, no VAT on our leccy bills. Fandabbydozy!

The devil’s in the detail though. Buried in the not-so-small print is that this priceless gift will only apply for a 6-month period from October 2026 to March 2027 and not forever. I suspect that war in the Middle East and its impact on future energy supplies could well scupper this policy but we’ll see. For now, let’s rejoice in that few extra quid.

Being the sad number-cruncher that I am, I wanted to quantify this potential monetary saving so I dug out all my previous energy bills covering the period October 25 to March 26 to see how much VAT I’d been charged in the past on my electricity during the same time period.

Wow! A grand total of just over £14 historically paid. Only that much VAT? Hmmmm. Such a paltry saving is not really going to make a dent in filling my cost-of-living pot-hole is it?

Let’s not look too closely in the mouth of this gift horse but instead re-focus on the positives ie what you could do with an extra £14 in your purse. Fourteen pounds would get you any one of the following:

• 8 pints of milk @ £1.65 per bottle
• 8 litres of diesel @ £1.65 per litre
• 7 x £2 bus trips
• 5 pints of Stowford Press cider at Wetherspoons (£2.39 per pint)
• 1 x £11 cinema ticket at the New Park cinema
• 2 x All-you-can-eat breakfasts at Toby Carvery (£6.99 each)
• 12 hours of parking in town (£10) and possibly enough change for a cuppa
• 3 x multipacks of Cornetto at Tesco (£3.75 per box)
• 28 x toilet rolls (Tesco pack of 4 luxury soft rolls at £2 per pack)
• 12 x Light bulbs (Amazon £1.14 per bulb)
• 2 x boxes of AnuSol soothing ointment for haemorrhoids (Boots £4.90 per tube)

That reduction on my energy bills is going to make one heck of a difference to my already pared back lifestyle but I’m not complaining because not having VAT applied to any bill is one less tax to pay and I’m all for not paying taxes.