And insulated our houses, all fitted LED bulbs , what would happen?

Our glorious Chancelor reckons we would all save money, but would we?

Or would the Oil,Gas and electric companies just put up their prices, along with Mr Cameron putting up the taxes on that fuel to retain their various income streams?

The price of fuel and energy is getting ridiculous. I was back in the UK the other week. It cost me £92 to fill a Vauxhall Insignia. And no, I was not at a motorway petrol station. I understand the 'average' cost of heating a house now exceeds £1000 per annum.

They could start by scrapping ridiculous 'green' taxes, that were simply money-making devices introduced by the previous Labour government, at a time the economy was doing well.

The October issue of Which? stated that the "average annual electricity and gas bill" is now £1,420 and that there has been a 137% increase in domestic gas prices since 2001.

It notes that the six major energy suppliers made £3.7bn profit last year, and says that it is a "myth" both that "energy companies don't make much money" and that "there is genuine competition in the market".

It points out that, in the case of the big six (British Gas, EDF, Eon, Npower, Scottish Power and SSE), "the retail and wholesale operations are linked by a single parent company. These 'vertically integrated' companies can sell electricity to themselves. However, this is carried out behind closed doors and the price the supply arm of the company pays to the generation arm isn't made public.

"The companies often claim they buy and sell their energy on the wholesale markets, but their own accounts show they sell internally."

On the 'green levy': "About £53 (including VAT) of the average annual energy bill goes towards policies to promote investment in low-carbon energy. This makes up about 4% of an average household bill in 2013. It is predicted to grow to £118 by 2020. However the bulk of our bills will continue to be made up of wholesale costs, network costs and suppliers' costs."

The report also points out that77% of the past 91 prices changes were increases.

Irrespective of whether one believes that climate change is man-made or not, it would seem sensible to try to reduce reliance on energy sources that are limited, and also to to reduce carb emissions IF that can possibly help to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Even taking climate change and emissions out of the equation, it's daft not to invest in things that will save us money.

And improve our own energy security.

Is this you asking a proper, serious question that you would like to debate properly and with honesty - or are you just fishing for self-satisfying abuse again (see the "Offense caused" thread).

In future could you indicate with a sub-title whether or not your post is a serious response or whether you're just looking to get off on some sort of weird fantasy where everyone hates you ?

Nobody actually getting the point being made, if everybody managed to reduce their energy usage overnight, the cost of that energy would double to enable both the companies and the government to retain ' income '

Do the government actually want individual householders to become self susstaining for energy?

This government certainly wouldn't.

It would make them rather unpopular with the people that they actually serve.

And therein lies he truth behind a great deal of government policy.

One thing to watch is road tax.

I can't remember where I read it but there was something a while back that there was concern in government that as engines became more efficient (e.g Mazda have a 150bhp diesel engine that puts out a mere 104 g/km Co2) road tax income is dropping quite drastically as people buy cars with much more efficient engines.

It will be interesting to see what they do about it as more cars are with in the 1st road tax band or even escape it altogether. There is at least one small car out there that isn't a hybrid or fully electric that is zero rated for road tax.

The breaking news this morning has me wondering if I am already committed to the asylum by my family as normally I'd file this under "No shoite Sherlock", but apparently its a genuine press release ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25181676 "NPower prices to remain stable until 2015 unless prices go up again" Which must go down in history as the most obvious and pointless press release of all time until you read further and realise that only yesterday they put up their prices by 10.5% AND demanded AND seem to have convinced the government that they shouldn't be paying the green levy in future. I'm starting to think they are taking the urine from us consumers, don't you ?

The breaking news this morning has me wondering if I am already committed to the asylum by my family as normally I'd file this under "No shoite Sherlock", but apparently its a genuine press release ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25181676 "NPower prices to remain stable until 2015 unless prices go up again" Which must go down in history as the most obvious and pointless press release of all time until you read further and realise that only yesterday they put up their prices by 10.5% AND demanded AND seem to have convinced the government that they shouldn't be paying the green levy in future. I'm starting to think they are taking the urine from us consumers, don't you ?