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Nick Clegg’s speech ignores jobs lost to misfiring green policies

nick cowen, 16 April 2012

Two of three major UK aluminium smelters lost in last three years

This week, Nick Clegg derided claims that environmental legislation was holding back industrial recovery as ‘utterly wrong’. But a new Civitas report reveals that, in fact, the UK’s draconian energy policy is causing the collapse of a successful British industry. ‘The closure of the Lynemouth aluminium smelter’ examines the influence of short-sighted Government policy on decisions to move aluminium production elsewhere, to the detriment of the environment.

In 2008, production of aluminium was an industry with an annual turnover of £3 billion and a 20,000-strong workforce. Today, it is a shadow of its former self. David Merlin-Jones, author of the report, charts the steady erosion of the British primary aluminium business as UK energy prices have risen unilaterally and two of the three British smelters have closed.

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