Letter: Wind of change

Sir: Your report "Labour rows back on wind power pledge," (23 March) understates the extent of the Government's abandonment of a policy designed to help the environment.

In the Budget, Gordon Brown put a tax on energy, refusing to discriminate between fuels which pollute and those, such as wind and wave, which do not. It is a depressing contrast with the one successful policy in this area introduced, strangely enough, by Nigel Lawson when he gave a price- differential to lead-free petrol. It will be a pity if Mr Brown's epitaph has to be: Worse than Lawson.

Renewable energy has always been at a disadvantage in Britain because Whitehall is under the spell of the rich and powerful lobbyists for nuclear power, oil and gas. They will go on creating environmental damage until ministers can be found with the courage to stand up to the established energy industries, and to the trade union barons who support them, and recognise the need to find something better.

DAVID ROSS

London SE5