The National Audit Office has ripped into the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy for blowing £168 million on two carbon capture technology competitions which the Treasury deemed to be too expensive if there was to be any chance of getting plants built in the UK in the coming years.

A Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy spokesman said: “We haven’t closed the door to CCS technology in the UK, but decisions had to be taken to control government spending and protect consumer bills. This is why the government ended the funding for the CCS competition, and ensured taxpayers were protected from significant costs when the competition closed.” Translation “the Treasury didn’t want to burn any more taxpayers’ money”.

This is the department which is going to determine Mrs May’s interventionist industrial strategy – so expect the same civil servants to blow hundreds of millions more on the “white heat of technology” that the private sector won’t touch. Big business is rubbing its hands with glee…