Instead, the government exempted some energy-intensive firms from the Climate Change Levy - a measure designed to force industries to use energy more frugally.

BBC: Green campaigners dismayed by Budget

It says it has been driven to this because its lobbying for relief from business rates and the climate change levy has achieved nothing.

BBC: Q&A: British Energy's crisis

But the other paras tell us that there is Petroleum Revenue Tax, some horrible Brownian complexity over the taxation of the extraction companies, fuel duty and excise taxes on petrol and derv plus VAT, and then the Climate Change Levy.

FORBES: National Geographic's Howling Ignorance About Fossil Fuel Subsidies