Intimidating letters from Dale Vince’s lawyers demonstrate his commitment to free speech is only skin deep.
DAVID TURVER
Dale Vince’s lawyers have been in touch about the article I wrote about the subsidy harvesting in his Green Britain/Ecotricity empire. Dale’s lawyers argued that I had treated him unfairly by not including a reference for how much his supply business pays into the Renewables Obligation scheme. I have therefore included an update in the original article to include his comments and my response to his comments.
The following article sets out some background and documents the exchange I have had with Dale Vince’s lawyers.
Ambiguous Attitude to Free Speech
Dale Vince has a somewhat ambiguous attitude to free speech. Recently he was filmed outside the Reform Party conference complaining that he was not allowed in and this was a portent of Nigel Farage’s “Free Speech Britain”.
However, a couple of months earlier Dale Vince posted on X that he would make “climate denial a criminal offense [sic]”.
It seems he only wants free speech when people echo his own views, but people who disagree with him should be criminalised. This is important context when considering the recent exchange I had with his lawyers.
Letters from Dale Vince’s Lawyers
I received a letter from Dale Vince’s in early September, see link below.
The gist of their complaint was that I had treated him unfairly because I had gone into great detail explaining the subsidies that his generation companies receive but not mentioned that his Ecotricity electricity supply company pays into the Renewables Obligation Scheme. They argued that because of this, one commenter had misunderstood the true position and made a derogatory remark about him and another had mistaken billpayer subsidies for taxpayer subsidies.
I made an interim response saying I did not accept his claim and would seek legal advice and get back to his lawyers in due course. They replied saying they would not contact me again until they had received my substantive response. Fortunately, I am a member of the Free Speech Union and I contacted them for advice. It took a little while to source a pro bono lawyer, but in the meantime Brett Wilson could not help themselves and sent another letter on September 16th, see link below.
The second letter challenged some of my interim response and came very close to claiming that the RO scheme is not a subsidy at all, despite appearing on the government’s subsidy control and transparency database. They demanded a response by September 23rd.
Shortly afterwards, I was put in touch with a lawyer through the FSU and they helped me draft my formal response, which is transcribed in full below. I challenged their definition of a subsidy, asserted that there was nothing unfair about my original article and demonstrated that the offending derogatory comment was not as a result of my article because similar words had been used about Dale Vince scores of times before my article was published. I also noted that Dale Vince’s claim to have never “taken any taxpayer funded green subsidy” was not quite true.
Nevertheless, I agreed to update the original article setting out that his supply business did pay £51.5m into the ROC-fund. I have also noted that these costs are recouped from customers and specific provision is made for the cost of the RO scheme in the Ofgem price cap. Even though Ecotricity remains liable for these costs if a customer does not pay the bill, there is also provision in the price cap for bad debts. I have also removed the “g-word” derogatory comment because it brought down the tone of the Substack.
Dale Vince’s lawyers have basically agreed to this response in their third letter reproduced on the link below.
Conclusions
It is clear that various members of the green establishment are getting rattled as the full costs of renewables and Net Zero are exposed. Although the letters from Dale Vince’s lawyers did not threaten any specific claim, they were clearly designed to intimidate. However, the nature of what they came up with did not really challenge the factual accuracy of the original article – they merely asserted that the piece was unfair and gave an incomplete picture. It appears Mr Vince’s commitment to free speech only extends to people he agrees with. Make of this saga what you will in the comments, but please don’t use the g-word.
I am very grateful to the Free Speech Union and their pro-bono lawyers for all the help they have given me.
My Response to Dale Vince’s Lawyers
My response to Dale Vince’s lawyers in full, with footnotes converted to links.
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your letters of 1 and 16 September. I am sorry that it has taken a little while to respond, but it has taken a little time to source some pro bono legal advice through the Free Speech Union.
The essence of your first letter is that you believe that my article about your client entitled Green Energy for Dummies (“the Article”), published on his Substack conveyed misleading impressions about your client, Dale Vince and led to derogatory comments being posted about him. You assert that the discussion about the subsidies received by your client’s companies was unfair. In your second letter you argue that Renewables Obligations (ROs) are not really subsidies because in your view they do not meet the definition of Government subsidies in the Subsidy Control Act.
Subsidies
Let us first deal with whether ROs are or are not subsidies. As you correctly point out in your first letter, I did not at any time assert that ROs are Government subsidies. In everyday language, anyone can subsidise anything. Employers can subsidise canteens to provide employees with cheaper food, parents can subsidise children to help them get on the housing ladder or in this case, billpayers can subsidise renewables generators to produce electricity. It is therefore fair to describe the certificates received generators under the RO scheme as subsidies.
In your second letter, you go to great lengths to attempt to demonstrate that the RO scheme does not represent a Government subsidy. As discussed above, I do not believe this is a relevant distinction because as you acknowledge, I never made such an assertion.
However, for the avoidance of doubt, there is plenty of evidence that the RO scheme is widely considered to be a subsidy scheme. As your client no doubt knows, the RO scheme is a complex system designed and mandated by Government. The Government sets the renewables obligation each year. Eligible renewables generators receive certificates from Ofgem and suppliers are obliged to present a certain number of certificates to Ofgem to meet their obligation through either buying ROCs or contributing to the buyout fund. Any excess in the fund is then redistributed to other suppliers. The scheme and the buyout fund are administered by Ofgem which is a public body. Therefore funds, in the form of RO certificates, do represent a subsidy that are distributed indirectly by a public body and so meet the definition of a subsidy in the Subsidy Control Act.
The Government clearly believes that the RO scheme is a subsidy because it appears in the Subsidy Control and Transparency database as you acknowledge. Moreover, the Office of Budget Responsibility clearly treats the RO scheme as public funds because the cost of Renewables Obligations appears in section 3.8 of their March 2025 Economic and Fiscal Outlook – detailed forecast tables: receipts. In addition, as shown in Annex 1 below, I have found six references of Government sources referring to the RO scheme as a subsidy. It is therefore fair for me to describe the certificates received by your client’s generators as subsidies.
Fairness
You allege that I did not treat your client fairly because the payments into the RO scheme made by your client’s electricity supply business were not mentioned in the Article.
I do not believe that I treated your client unfairly in any way. The part of the article that referred to subsidies was clearly about the certificates received by the generation arm of your client’s business – Ecotricity Generation Limited and its subsidiaries.
Secondly, your letter refers to the total £51.5m (£7.2m to buy certificates from the generation arm plus a further £44.3m to purchase other ROCs or payments to the buyout fund) of costs incurred in FY2025 by Ecotricity’s supply business to meet its Renewable Obligation. I do not dispute these costs but respectfully suggest that these costs are not relevant. In common with all electricity suppliers, Ecotricity must meet its obligations under the RO scheme. The costs incurred in complying with the scheme are passed on to consumers in their bills. The latest price cap from Ofgem includes a cost of £33.06 per MWh supplied. For an average user of 2,700kWh this amounts to a cost of over £89 per year. If we are to step back and look at this from a group perspective, the supply business receives £51.5m in cash from consumers through their bills, the billpayer subsidy, to cover the £44.3m cost of the RO certificates purchased externally by the business, leaving a surplus of £7.2m. There is then an inter-company transfer of £7.2m from the supply business to the generation business to purchase the internally generated certificates, leaving the supply business in a net neutral position. On net, the generation arm has received £7.2m in subsidies. Therefore, my characterisation of the position is entirely fair and reasonable. As far as I am aware Dale Vince is the Chief Executive and 100% owner of Green Britain Group, so even though he does not receive the subsidies personally, he clearly benefits from them.
Taxpayer Funded Green Subsidies
You first letter asserts that your “client nor any of the companies in which he has an interest have ever taken any taxpayer funded green subsidy” [your emphasis]. You acknowledge I never made such an assertion. However, my research has identified that your client’s statement may not be totally true.
Carbon Bank Limited is part of your client’s group of companies and its accounts for years ending April 2022 and 2023 record that it received government grants of £65,278 and £16,490, respectively. The notes to the accounts say the “grant income relates to grants from the Environment Agrency [sic] to support the developement [sic] of the company as an environmental project.” These grants are in effect taxpayer funded green subsidies. You might consider requesting that your client withdraws this statement.
Derogatory Comments
You assert that our client’s article has led certain commenters to make derogatory comments about your client. In particular, Oscar described your client as a “grifting tw@”. I am not responsible for the reactions of third parties to my articles and I dispute that my article has caused this characterisation of your client. A quick search of X for posts before 6 July 2025 containing the words Dale Vince and variations of the word “grift” returns scores of entries. Similar Google searches of Facebook and other social media sites also return many dozens of entries in total. It seems that many people have used that kind of characterisation of your client prior to the publication of the Article.
It is unfortunate that commenter John D interpreted the subsidies received by your client’s companies as subsidies from the taxpayer. I reiterate that I am not responsible for the reaction of commenters and that I did not describe the subsidies received by your client’s businesses as taxpayer subsidies. For the avoidance of doubt, they are billpayer subsidies. As most taxpayers pay electricity bills, the distinction you seek to draw risks becoming a distinction without difference.
Suggested Actions
First, we do not believe that my Article treated your client unfairly. It is fair to describe the RO scheme as a subsidy scheme and it is fair to highlight the subsidies received by your client’s generation companies. The fact that the supply business pays into the RO scheme and collects that billpayer subsidy money from customers through their bills is immaterial. Omitting those facts from the article do not constitute unfair treatment. Therefore, I do not see the need to alter the article.
However, as a gesture of goodwill, I will undertake to add an update to the article indicating that Dale Vince would like to draw attention to the fact that his generation business spent £51.5m on RO certificates in FY2025. I will also note that this money is recouped from customers. Perhaps your client would like to suggest some appropriate wording for his part of the update.
I agree the word “grifting” is an ugly word and is not one I would use in an article such as this. It is unfortunate that this word and its derivatives have been used in relation to your client many times before the Article was published. Although such a comment brings down the usually high-brow tone of comments on my articles, I tend towards not censoring comments unless they use unusually foul language. I note that the Substack platform contains the ability to report inappropriate comments and your client has not availed himself of that function.
I do not believe that John D’s confusion of taxpayer and billpayer subsidies is a point that makes a material difference. Moreover, as demonstrated above, your client’s claim to have never taken any taxpayer funded green subsidy is not quite true.
I would like to reserve the right to publish an article discussing this dispute and your client’s attempt to stifle public scrutiny of the subsidies received by his business.
I trust this letter and the suggested actions address your complaint. I look forward to hearing from your soon with the suggested wording to the article update outlined above.
Yours faithfully,
…
Annex 1 – Parliamentary References
Government references to the RO scheme as a subsidy.
- In a 2012 Written Ministerial Statement on the Renewables Obligation Banding Review, published by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the minister described the RO as involving subsidies: “a comprehensive, rigorous and evidence-based review of RO subsidies” and noted that the policy package “reduces the lifetime subsidy cost of the Renewables Obligation per MWh of renewable electricity generated.”
· During a 2013 House of Lords debate on the Renewables Obligation (Amendment) Order, Baroness Verma (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change) referred to the RO’s banded support as allowing “different technologies to receive different levels of subsidy” and highlighted how the changes would reduce “the lifetime subsidy cost of the renewables obligation.”
· In a 2015 statement to Parliament on onshore wind subsidies, Amber Rudd (Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change) announced “proposals to end new subsidies for onshore wind, specifically in relation to the renewables obligation.”
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2015-06-22/debates/1506227000002/OnshoreWindSubsidies
· A related government news release that year on changes to renewables subsidies also stated: “Renewable energy subsidies are paid for via energy bills through a number of schemes including the Feed-in Tariff scheme and Renewable Obligation scheme.”
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/changes-to-renewables-subsidies
- In a 2016 House of Lords debate on the Renewables Obligation Closure Etc. (Amendment) Order, Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change) discussed measures “to deal with the projected over-allocation of renewable energy subsidies” and referred to the “early closure of the renewables obligation scheme” as part of efforts to “end subsidies where they are not needed.”
- During a 2021 House of Lords debate on the Renewables Obligation (Amendment) Order, Lord Callanan (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) explicitly stated: “The renewables obligation was introduced in 2002 to provide a subsidy for electricity generation from renewable sources.”
This article (Dale’s Empire Strikes Back) was created and published by David Turver and is republished here under “Fair Use”
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