I THINK the clue is in our name – Conservatives.

Among other things, we like to conserve what is proven to work, unless a viable, affordable and reliable alternative is evident.

The Energy Bill this week in the Commons is diametrically opposed to this philosophy and I voted against it.

Touted as a way to support the UK’s unrealistic climate change commitments by increasing energy reliability, it seemed to me to do anything but.

It banned any new coal mines, now or in the future, and aimed to restrict future oil and gas exploration.

The ban on onshore wind farms, which the Prime Minister himself had supported, was overturned.

Yet these inefficient, expensive and unsightly monstrosities are, in reality, anything but green.

And there were sinister provisions to criminalise law-abiding home owners who fail to observe arbitrary, energy performance regulations.

Put simply, fail to insulate your house adequately and face fines or even imprisonment, all at the whim of newly empowered local authorities.

Whatever happened to an Englishman’s home being his castle?

And, while we’re at it, let’s ban oil boilers in 12 years, gas boilers in 18 months and new petrol and diesel cars in seven years.

All this is a result of the Climate Change Act 2008, which passed almost unopposed, and should now be repealed and rethought.

The Act created an all-powerful quango – the Climate Change Committee (CCC) – whose remit is to squeeze us through successive restrictions.

The CCC’s ‘carbon budgets’ – we’re currently on the 4th – are enshrined in law, increasingly limiting our choices and those of the government.

All this, remember, in a country responsible for just one per cent of global emissions.

Of course we must play our part, but impoverishing the nation is not the way forward.