Relentless Drive to Net Zero is Trampling British Industry, Chemicals Plant Boss Warns

Climate policy burdens are making British industry chronically uncompetitive

British industry is being trampled underfoot as the country “gallops” to Net Zero, the head of a West Midlands chemicals plant, Adrian Hanrahan, has said. GB News has the story.

Adrian Hanrahan said that energy costs had been high since the Ukraine invasion and warned that green levies and the pressure to decarbonise were making the situation worse.

The Managing Director of historic chemicals company Robinson Brothers said the plant, along with other manufacturers, had taken huge strides in increasing energy efficiency.

But with prices soaring again as a result of the Iran war, the cumulative pressure on the chemicals industry was becoming too much, he said.

He said of the Net Zero demands: “We’re trying to run a marathon in a sprint format.”

The sector employs more than 150,000 people directly and supports half a million jobs in the wider economy. It has annual exports worth £61 billion.

Robinson Brothers was founded in 1869 and had weathered calamities including two world wars, the Great Depression, the financial crisis and the Covid pandemic.

But not once has the family-run firm considered leaving its West Midlands roots. After the 2008 crash, Hanrahan pointed out that China might prove more lucrative.

“I explained they’d make more money”, he said, as he showed GB News around the 14 acre site in West Bromwich.

“But it’s a family business, and we’ve been here since 1869. “The family is rooted in the West Midlands and they are absolutely adamant we are staying here. We are committed to this area.

“But we’re existing and surviving, in spite of successive governments. It’s cost, cost, cost for us, and it’s making us so uncompetitive.”

The chemicals sector is particularly vulnerable to energy prices. It requires large amounts of power to manufacture and also needs gas or oil as feedstocks.

Worth reading in full.