Thank you for your letter: here’s what the Labour government is doing on Vestas and the wider renewable energy industry

By Ed Miliband MP

Dear Alex,

Thank you for your letter about the Vestas factory on the Isle of Wight. I want to take the opportunity to let LabourList readers know about what the Labour government has been doing in relation to Vestas and the wider renewable energy industry.

I have met with some of the workers from Vestas and I am very sorry for the people who are losing their jobs. When I met the Vestas management a few months ago, to see how we could help, and when I have spoken to them since then, I have wanted to do all I can to try to find a solution that could help the workforce.

Vestas have repeatedly told us that offers of government subsidy were not the issue for them. The factory makes a different sized blade to the ones used in Britain, so each one it makes is shipped to the US. They wanted to have their production in America to cut some of that journey.

For months, we have worked with the company to understand what would be required to convert the factory to making onshore blades for the UK.

Their biggest difficulty is with planning objections to onshore wind turbines, which have slowed down the growth in the UK market. That is why we are reforming the planning rules and are arguing strongly that people need to see climate change as a bigger threat to the countryside than the wind turbine.

We are unlikely to be a centre for onshore wind production if applications are consistently turned down. Analysis in the Guardian on Monday reported that Tory councils have blocked 70% of proposals for onshore wind schemes.

So we have to win a political argument. As Greenpeace director John Sauven said in the Guardian yesterday:

“One of the reasons Britain’s green industrial revolution is yet to take off is the lack of domestic demand for wind turbines, and a key reason for that has been the attitude of many Conservative councils. They need to be offered incentives to stop blocking wind developments, while David Cameron could make a difference straight away by making a crystal-clear commitment that a Tory Britain would meet the target to generate 20% of our energy from renewables by 2020.”

Vestas are keeping a prototype facility at the factory on the Isle of Wight. This week we have awarded Vestas more than six million pounds for their R+D facility, which will employ 150 people initially, and is expected to grow in the future.

This week we have also made available one billion pounds worth of loans for onshore windfarms that have been stalled by the credit crunch. The resources we are announcing back up our plans with clear actions to ensure we deliver.

Labour’s policy is having a positive effect. Next year alone, the renewable electricity industry will get £1 billion of support because of government action, and the amount of power from onshore wind grew by a third last year, and the amount of offshore wind power grew by 67% – so Britain now has more offshore wind power than any other country in the world.

It is to enhance the prospects for green jobs that we have made available 120 million pounds for offshore wind manufacture in the UK and 60 million pounds for marine development. Last week I visited a factory in Wales that employs 800 people and exports solar panels across Europe. The week before I saw a factory that is producing buses that produce fewer emissions, helping climate change and local air quality. Research suggest there could be half a million jobs in renewable energy by 2020.

I believe that to be ready to pursue these opportunities, we must invest in the skills, research, and the infrastructure to help clean energy companies grow – and we are making those investments.

In the end, making sure the transition happens as quickly as possible will need government action, it will need dynamic companies, and it will also need us to win arguments around the country that renewable power should have a bigger role in the country’s future. I hope LabourList readers will help us win that political argument.

Thank you again for writing to me.

Ed Miliband