Department of Energy and Climate Change documents have reportedly revealed that the much-vaunted Carbon Reduction Scheme will be enforced against company executives and employees with the sanction of heavy fines and even imprisonment if there is perceived to be any failure to provide ‘assistance’ and so on. This revelation is little short of an invasion of civil liberties of breathtaking proportions.

Given the successful defence on the grounds of conscience etc in a succession of criminal damage cases by Greenpeace and other protesters, this nightmare scenario postulates the criminalisation of a vast swathe of critics and dissenters in respect of the whole global warming debate. I can foresee a collision of monumental proportions between government and civil rights activists, with sceptics being imprisoned on the back of potentially flawed scientific opinion. The only thing that George Orwell got wrong was the date. Meanwhile, in this cash-strapped economy the taxpayer, as always, will continue to pick up the bill.

David Kirwan, Kirwans Solicitors, Merseyside