Letters: Reliance on goods from polluting countries makes net zero a nonsense

SIR – It is extraordinary that our goal is to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Most people don’t believe this is possible, and in any case while we continue to buy goods from heavily polluting countries we can’t claim to have achieved it.

The difficulty of reducing global emissions is much more complicated and profound than the soundbite of net zero implies. As the Queen, in an unguarded moment, so aptly said of those not attending the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow later this month, too many “talk but don’t do”.

Peter Taylor
Sidmouth, Devon

SIR – Having experienced energy shortages as a child in the 1950s and worked in the British energy sector from 1969 to 2016 (with coal and gas but mainly nuclear), I have lived through many governments’ energy policies and ministers.

At each election, my first port of call in party manifestos is energy policy. That is more important than anything else. If there is no energy, there is great risk to health, defence, education and supply chains. A political party in power when the lights go out will be destroyed at the following election.

I gave evidence to a select committee on engineering, and that experience led me to conclude that our Parliament, with the possible exception of the House of Lords, is almost devoid of the engineering knowledge needed to realise the risks to our country and to choose solutions, now even more essential to combat global warming.

I only wish that the Government would commission the professional institutions to work together, perhaps led by the Royal Academy of Engineering, to rescue us from this entirely foreseeable situation.

Michael Grave
Consett, Co Durham

SIR – I have used three public charging points in the six months that I have owned an electric vehicle. Two of these, one at a supermarket and the other at a hotel, did not work. It does not matter how many charging points are installed if the infrastructure is not there to keep them operational.

The third was at a motorway service station. A car was plugged in, with the owner presumably having a cup of coffee near by, and another car was waiting. It was an 11Kw unit, so it would have taken six hours to charge our car with a near-empty battery. Surely in 10 years’ time everyone stopping at a service station will want to put their car on charge while they have a break.

Having made a random check at three stations on the M4, I found that one has six points – none of which are suitable for our car – and the other two have only one suitable point each. The problem is exacerbated by the proliferation of different connections.

We do indeed have a long way to go.

Hugh Evans
Pennington, Hampshire

Online abuse of MPs

SIR – One thing that has emerged from the murder of Sir David Amess is the amount of online vitriol to which many MPs – especially women – are exposed.

It is beyond belief that all-powerful companies such as Facebook cannot or will not root out the culprits.

John Taylor
Purley, Surrey

SIR – Anonymity is the oxygen that feeds online abuse.

Until offenders can be individually identified, held accountable and punished, this insidious and harmful behaviour will never be curtailed.

Paul Strong
Claxby, Lincolnshire

SIR – I am shocked and saddened by the death of Sir David Amess. However, I would take issue with Tim Stanley, who criticises the police for refusing to allow a priest to administer last rites.

When I was a senior investigating officer, I spent a number of years investigating serious crimes. Managing the scene is crucial, especially in the minutes after a murder.

What appeared to be an innocent visit by a priest could have resulted in a loss of evidence. An experienced investigator cannot take that risk.

Philip Spicksley
Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire

Hostility to business

SIR – The problem of “missing workers” is exacerbated by the increasingly hostile environment faced by experienced business professionals operating through limited companies.

First, many prospective clients still insist on a strict Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm style of contract, which no longer suits an increasing number of professionals.

Second, the tax on dividends, via corporation tax for limited companies, reduces the attractiveness of working. Recent changes to IR35 rules, under which a contractor is treated as a client’s employee, were the last straw. I wouldn’t consider a contract within IR35 without a significant increase in charge rates to the client.

Third, Making Tax Digital and monthly payroll submissions just add a bit more cost and difficultly to running a very small business.

In short, it’s just not worth the aggravation.

Nick Jackson
Blandford Forum, Dorset

Russia’s track record

SIR – Sir Anthony Brenton (Letters, October 18), defending Russia’s conduct in the energy crisis, acknowledges that it does regularly “misbehave”.

By this does he mean the murder of political opponents, the shooting down of the civilian flight MH17 with a Russian surface-to-air missile, the use of the deadly nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury, or Vladimir Putin’s war crimes in Syria?

It would be nice to see a little more condemnation from Sir Anthony. Not a single extra molecule of Russian gas will flow through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that could not be delivered via pipelines in Ukraine.

Dr R D Ogilvy
Nottingham

Cash courtesy

SIR – When I was a youngster, my bank manager father told me to place notes with the Queen on them facing up. Am I alone in continuing to do this? It appears cash-point fillers no longer do.

Mark Nowers
Stutton, Suffolk

Human rights reform

SIR – Reform of the Human Rights Act is long overdue, particularly with regard to immigration and asylum issues.

It could not have been foreseen that the Act would be eroded by decades of misinterpretation by the courts when it came to the removal of unlawful migrants and criminals. It has fostered an appeals system that allows innumerable bites of the cherry, and is misappropriated by those seeking to frustrate removal.

Furthermore, the Act assumed that all claims to asylum would be made by those genuinely in need of refuge; this has regrettably detracted from the word’s true meaning.

It will be an uphill task for Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary, but one from which he should not flinch in order to fulfil Britain’s obligation to bona fide refugees.

Elizabeth Edmunds
Former immigration officer
Hassocks, West Sussex

Voiceless volunteers

SIR – Charles Moore makes many excellent points, but one requires clarification. He says that the National Trust’s objection – to the members’ resolution that it engage with volunteers on the grounds that this could create employment law obligations – could, with goodwill, be got round. Specialist employment lawyers have told Restore Trust that this objection lacks any legal validity.

The National Trust seems reluctant to listen to the views of its committed and experienced volunteers.

Jack Hayward
Restore Trust
Shrewsbury

Climate shaming

SIR – Why should the people of Ironbridge have to accept a badge of shame saying their home is “the birthplace of climate change”, as advocated by Nick Ralls, the chief executive of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust?

Surely ever since humans discovered how to make and control fire the climate has been subject to change and as such its origins are many thousands of miles from this Shropshire town.

Charles Coulson
Quarrington, Lincolnshire

The film that exposed Britain’s fallible censors

SIR – Robbie Collin claims that “Britain’s film censors have finally lost the plot” in giving an 18 certificate to The Last Duel and Last Night in Soho, but the British Board of Film Classification has always made odd decisions.

Ever since it was first screened in the late 1970s, the film version of Watership Down has enjoyed a BBFC classification of U, despite being easily the most disturbing movie ever aimed at youngsters.

As the legendary poster of Bigwig being garotted in a snare indicates, the film is no cuddly Beatrix Potter story. A squashed hedgehog on a road, visions of a field of blood, terrified rabbits asphyxiated with poison gas, death in the shape of the Black Rabbit of Inlé: this is nature red in tooth and claw. The throat-tearing dictator of Efrafa, General Woundwort, is one of Britain’s greatest cinematic villains.

No wonder children were said to be so quiet when they left the cinema after seeing the film.

Mark Boyle
Johnstone, Renfrewshire

Why heat pumps won’t work in older houses

SIR – I live in a new house with an air-source heat pump (Letters, October 18). There has been talk about subsidising the cost of retrofitting older houses with these devices, but there is a bigger obstacle to making homes greener.

Heat pumps only work efficiently if the house in question has the highest standards of insulation. Many older houses have poor insulation, and it would therefore cost more to heat them with a heat pump.

More thinking is required on this matter.

Colin McPhie
Sandy, Bedfordshire

SIR – Maja Dijkstra (Letters, October 18) perpetuates the commonly held belief that all heat pumps are air-source, but this is not the case.

I have an excellent ground-source heat pump, which provides abundant hot water and keeps the house warm, with lower bills. It has done so for 13 years.

Its disadvantages were its cost and the inconvenience of installation: it required two 160ft trenches to be dug in our fields.

However, if all new houses had to have ground-source heat pumps, these two factors would be less significant since the expense would be incorporated into the cost of the home, and the work could be done by the builders.

Air-source heat pumps are indeed noisy and don’t work very well when it is really cold. People buy them because they are cheaper and more convenient to install – but these appear to be their only advantages.

Elizabeth Jones
Chard, Somerset

Letters to the Editor

We accept letters by post, fax and email only. Please include name, address, work and home telephone numbers.
ADDRESS: 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 0DT
FAX: 020 7931 2878
EMAIL: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
FOLLOW: Telegraph Letters on Twitter @LettersDesk