Last week the government dealt yet another hammer blow to investment confidence, but this time for the community energy sector.

HM Treasury’s decision to remove EIS, SEIS and SITR tax relief for community energy projects will not only make investment in them considerably less attractive, but also place a large proportion of the development pipeline in doubt as the required finance becomes harder to source.

And yet, despite the obvious impact on the sector, it appears HMT did not conduct any impact assessment on the proposals and instead opted to sneak them through. Its conduct makes the department’s refusal to answer questions on the subject all the more antagonistic.