Government lose High Court Appeal

Posted by Robert Shields

The UK government has lost its appeal to overturn the decision by the High Court in December that called its changes to the solar PV panel subsidies unlawful.

In December, the government reduced the amount of money that people with panels can earn from its Feed-in Tariff from 43p per kilowatt hour to just 21p, having originally planned the changes in April.

However, it was challenged by Friends of the Earth, and the High Court agreed with the latter that the moving of the goalposts was illegal.

Today (25th January) the Court of Appeal rejected energy secretary Chris Huhne's claims that he had the power to make such changes, which were feared to be putting 29,000 jobs at risk.

Counsel Sam Grodzinski QC, appearing for Friends of the Earth, said: "Until the lawfulness of the Secretary of State's proposal is finally resolved by the courts, those still wishing to participate in that industry cannot know the economic consequences of doing so."