Introduction Background Note
10.The CCL was introduced on 1 April 2001. Its main rates tax electricity, natural gas, solid fuels and liquid petroleum gas when used as fuels by business and the public sector. The levy’s purpose is to encourage energy efficiency.
11.The Government announced at Budget 2013 that it would exempt from the main rates of CCL the energy used in mineralogical and metallurgical processes, from 1 April 2014 and that it would seek views from industry after the Budget to inform the draft legislation. The new exemptions will ensure the UK’s tax treatment of these highly energy intensive processes is in line with tax treatments elsewhere in the European Union (EU), thereby reducing any distortion of competition.
12.The exemptions will be defined by reference to the NACE code system, the EU system of classifying economic activity; the codes are widely used in data gathering and statistical reporting.
13.Certain existing reliefs from the CCL will become redundant as they will be covered by the exemptions. This includes the lower rate for taxable commodities used in metal recycling and taxable commodities used in certain fuel uses. As a result, these superseded reliefs will be removed at the same time the new exemptions for mineralogical and metallurgical processes come into force.