All employers will get the money back as a reduction in National Insurance contributions they pay for employees. The idea is an incentive to cut energy use, coupled with an incentive to employ more people. Ten per cent of it will be used for energy saving capital grants for business. It has undergone years of delicate negotiation to ensure it is fair. The one and only supporter of Portillo's surprise announcement was the Institute of Directors.
Business can no longer be the fall guy.
But most important of all, Michael Portillo took no account of global warming. He simply criticised the levy as a tax on business. It is politics as usual, no change. At least, unlike the Republicans in America, the Conservatives don't deny the existence of global warming, nor the need to do something about it. But as oppositions do and always will, they deny the need for a particular belt-tightening measure the government of the day proposes.