Interesting to hear the noises being made by Oliver Letwin at the conservative's conference about green policies. After all the negative noise being generated from within DECC and elsewhere suggesting that several green policies may go, or at best, be watered down Letwin essentially extolled the virtues of a "one coherent whole" policy package. So the Green Deal, FITs, electric vehicles etc all got a thumbs up.
Big Question: How influential is Letwin? Is this a rearguard action by someone sliding out of power or is he still a strong broker behind the scenes?
Let's hope that the latter is true.
He had some interesting things to say about NPV approaches to investment decisions - arguing that such an approach is OK for short term decisions but would never have allowed, for instance, Chartes Cathedral to be built. Actually, I don't think it's the approach itself that's flawed, more a case of too short an analysis period and/or a poor grasp of terminal values. Perhaps one could also add in not taking account of externalities correctly (which he did cite in a slightly different context).
So - we continue to watch this space.
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