ENERGY SECRETARY Ed Miliband guaranteed £21.7 billion in subsidies for carbon capture and storage (CCS) in October. But is it the “clean energy revolution” he promises, or as critics charge, energy firms grabbing subsidies for a questionable technology?

It is a bad sign that one of Britain’s leading CCS lobbyists is simultaneously involved in another scheme widely seen as a corporate taxpayer rip-off. Labour Baroness Helen Liddell is the president of the carbon capture and storage association (CCSA).

She is also a director of Annington Homes, a firm built around a public-sector housing deal described by MPs as “disastrous for taxpayers.” Liddell’s role with Annington is especially shocking because the scandal involves poorly insulated, damp, mouldy houses — the very opposite of what anyone in favour of reducing carbon should countenance.