Thank goodness energy and climate secretary Ed Miliband is out of the country for a while, heading up the UK's delegation at the COP30 climate talks in Brazil.

Let's be honest, most of us have had our fill of this energy zealot and wouldn't mind if he never came back (and it would save on a few tons of C02 emissions).

Readers say that with the exception of economic wrecker that is Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Miliband has done more damage to this great country than any other minister who has been a member of Sir Keir Starmer's Cabinet since Labour came into power last year.

It's impossible to argue against this line of thinking.

By myopically pursuing a green agenda in the hope of achieving zero gas emissions by 2050, the energy secretary has racked up a series of 'crimes' which we should never forgive him for.

Prominent on the charge sheet is what he has done to household energy costs. By heaping a smorgasbord of green levies on energy bills, he has been instrumental in causing them to rise, not fall.

In doing so, he has extended the cost-of-living crisis for millions of households: a crisis that his Cabinet colleague Reeves is keen to tackle in her forthcoming Budget.

She made the point in last week's tortuous pre-Budget speech (why, Rachel, did you agree to deliver 20 minutes of utter tosh).

She repeated the message in response to Thursday's announcement from the Bank of England that, for the time being, interest rates are sticking at four per cent.

Miliband is on course to drive a coach, (electric) HGV and horses through a pre-election promise made last year to cut average annual bills by £300 before 2030.

When Labour came into power, annual bills averaged £1,568. Today, they stand at £1,755 and although energy experts believe bills will fall slightly in January, they will rise again come spring.

Maybe Miliband's promise will come true. After all, miracles do happen. In recent weeks, he has insisted the promise will be met as the country weans itself off fossil fuels in favour of clean power: a mix of nuclear, solar and wind.

But the economist who provided the original research to back the £300 promise no longer thinks so. Earlier this month, Pawel Czyzak said now was 'a much different situation than it was in 2023' (when he did his work). He said if the cost of upgrading the electricity grid kept increasing and wholesale prices don't go down as much, 'then it's going to be hard to generate savings'.

He added: 'There is a risk of these savings [£300] being wiped out if we can't get the actual electricity cost down, and that might happen if offshore wind is too expensive.'

Miliband's other energy 'crimes' are as damaging.

They include unaffordable energy costs for businesses, leading to further deindustrialisation and international companies shunning the UK.

Four days ago, US ambassador Warren Stephens said the UK's energy costs are 'too high on which to run an industrialised economy'.

Add in the decimation of the country's oil and gas industry, and the smothering of the UK's farmlands in a blanket of solar panel farms – in the process endangering the country's food security – and the picture doesn't look good.

Economist Sir Dieter Helm warns the UK not only has amongst the highest-cost electricity in the world, but this cost 'is being baked in beyond 2040.'

He adds: 'It will be a big drag on economic growth.

'Indeed, it already is. Britain is not going to have cheap energy any time soon – unless there is radical policy action.'

How has this green zealot been allowed to run amok and do such harm without being accountable?

Miliband seems untouchable, as evidenced by his latest announcement: a tax increase levied on UK manufacturers of gas and oil boilers if they fail to meet sales targets for expensive heat pumps. This so-called 'boiler' tax is one of the most ludicrous, preposterous taxes I have ever come across.

It's anti-business because it penalises UK boiler makers for not being able to offload unsaleable heat pumps (most imported) which they have bought and store in expensive warehouses. They can't sell them because these eco-friendly heating systems (in Miliband's eyes at least) are out of the financial reach of most households: cost-of-living crisis or no cost-of-living crisis.

In short, heat pumps are too bloody expensive, even after the public purse has chipped in with a grant of £7,500 under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (Bus) to those who have homes to accommodate them. (Bus was a Conservative initiative continued by Labour.)

The typical air source heat pump costs £13,000 inclusive of installation fees: £5,500 post Bus. A new gas boiler costs between £2,000 and £3,000, including fitting.

Currently, the boiler tax is set at 6 per cent. It applies to the country's largest boiler makers (the likes of Baxi, Ideal, Vaillant and Bosch Worcester) which sell at least 20,000 units annually (gas and oil boilers and heat pumps).

If less than 6 per cent of their annual sales in the year ending April 5, 2026 (adjusted down by 20,000) are not heat pumps fitted according to an accredited scheme, they are fined.

For example, a manufacturer which offloads a total of 250,000 units must sell 13,800 heat pumps. Every missed sale below 13,800 results in a £500 fine. In the worst case scenario, manufacturer selling no pumps will get fined £6.9million.

From next April, it will get worse as the heat pump quota rises to 8 per cent. Using the previous example, a company selling no pumps will be fined £9.2million.

Although the companies will pay the fines, they will be passed on to purchasers of new boilers: in our example, an added cost of £27.60 (this year) and £36.80 (next).

Mike Foster, head of the Energy and Utilities Alliance, told me: 'The tax fines companies for not being able to sell a product that most households cannot afford. It's crazy.

'It punishes those who can't afford to buy a heat pump, live in a home unsuitable for one, or who simply do not want one.'

With Reeves furiously exploring ways to cut household energy bills in the forthcoming Budget, it is surely time for her to stand up to her Cabinet colleague.

She should take an axe to the boiler tax, rein in Bus and cut the green levies that bump up our energy bills.

The zealot needs taming before he wreaks even more damage.