Minister Austin Gatt has spilled much ink on this paper trying to challenge Labour's irresponsible proposal to halve the electricity surcharge. I have a challenge for him that, if taken up, may start to convince people that the manner in which he imposed a flat surcharge rate was not another Labour-style exercise in "calculator politics".

The challenge I present him with is to adopt Alternattiva Demokratika's proposal on the surcharge. We are proposing that rather than a single rate of surcharge, there should be different rates that would be charged according to the daily electricity consumption per capita. In simple terms, efficient consumers would pay a lower rate of surcharge while those who consume recklessly pay a higher rate of surcharge.

It is a simple polluter-pays proposal that would be cost neutral to the government and act as an incentive for people to save energy.

This proposal could halve the surcharge for those households that deserve it while costing the government nothing. With the Green proposal Dr Gatt can have it both ways!