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UTILITY WEEK | 27Th March - 2nd aprIL 2015 | 9 E l E ct i o n c o u n td o w n : 4 1 d ay s to g o UtilityWeekLobby Next issue: Investment and tax "This is a Budget that takes Britain one more big step on the road from austerity to prosperity." George Osborne "Not for the first time, this is a Budget from this chancellor that simply will not be believed." Ed Miliband word up… his words in numbers: "Energy" 3 "Water" 0 "Investment" 13 "Better off" 3 "Fix the roof" 1 "Kitchen" 1 Infrastructure project? You need a system view Massive investment is needed in UK energy to deliver the low-carbon transition and maintain supply resilience. This will be chal- lenging. It will be easy to make poor investment decisions if parts of the system are looked at in isolation and all the consequences of decisions are not thought through. For example, if we are to greatly expand renewables, this needs to be coupled with a stronger focus on demand response and energy storage, and enabled by a smart grid. Getting the timing of deployment of these components wrong will result in expensive assets that cannot be used to their potential and hence higher bills. A systems architect function looking across these issues is a key component to affordable, secure and low- carbon future electricity and energy. Simon Harrison, Institution of Engineer- ing and Technology Lib Dem alternative budget Chief secretary to the treasury Danny alexander unveiled the Liberal Democrats' alterna- tive budget last Friday – much to the derision of the party's opponents. It is the first time a govern- ment minister has set out an alternative budget in this way in a Commons debate, and he was warned by Commons Speaker John bercow that statements in parliament have to be ministerial and not party political. alexander told mps that if the Lib Dems had free reign over the budget they would not cut as deeply from public spending as the Conservatives nor borrow as much as Labour. it was effectively a cam- paign pitch trying to sell the virtues of the Lib Dems to the electorate. alexander said his budget had been produced by treasury officials using information from the Office for Budget responsibility. he said: "For all those people left cold by yes- terday's exchanges, all those asking, 'is there another way to do this?' yes, there is." alexander said the Lib Dems would aim to eliminate the budget deficit by 2017/18 through a combination of £30 billion of spending cuts and tax rises. this is the same date as set out by the tories. Conservative mp adam afriye told the Commons he was "stunned" by alexander's statement. he said it was "an absolute betrayal of the role they have played in govern- ment". Labour's shadow treasury minister called it a "farce". utility wEEk loBBy Poll trackEr 20 Mar 2015 – yougov poll Party share change (from 13 Mar) Conservatives 33% -1 Labour 35% +1 Lib Dems 8% +1 Ukip 14% 0 Green 5% 0 Other 6% -1 winnerS LoSerS ● offshore oil and gas. Shares in oil companies rose slightly on news of £1.3 bil- lion of support for north Sea production. centrica shares were 248.90p at the start of the Budget speech (already up from 239.30 at the start of the week), and rose to 257.36p by the following Monday. Both Bp and royal dutch Shell also added 2.4 per cent. ● tidal lagoon power. The company behind the planned Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon had confirmation that CfD ne- gations on the 320MW project will start. ● energy-intensive indus- tries. £250 million fund to help energy-intensive industries because of the feed-in-tariff regime will be brought forward to 2015/16. ● banks. The bank levy will increase to 0.21 per cent, rais- ing £900 million. Other new measures on banks are also expected to raise £5.3 billion. ● tax dodgers. chancel- lor Osborne has pledged to introduce the diverted profits tax – the so-called Google Tax – to force multinational com- panies to pay a 25 per cent tax rate on profits earned in the UK and diverted to offshore accounts. ● business. Little was offered to businesses in the Budget in terms of pre-elec- tion giveaways. Osborne very much stuck to the task and business groups did applaud his fiscal discipline. winnErs and losErs froM tHE BudgEt