Who benefits? Delivering on energy and infrastructure

Across the industrial north, it is striking how old pit villages and industrial towns are proving far less willing to embrace renewable energy than the noisier, more polluting fossil fuels and industries which shaped their identity. Energy companies are getting a nasty shock after mistakenly believing that these communities would not bat an eyelid at a few wind turbines on the surrounding hills because they had been content to make huge slag heaps part of the landscape in decades past.

Who benefits from a wind turbine being plonked on a hill? The farmer who owns the hill usually gets a sizeable amount from the energy company. Everyone else benefits from one wind turbine-worth of increased energy security and one wind turbine-worth of reduced carbon emissions into the atmosphere. And they benefit equally from those things whether they live in sight of the blades or hundreds of miles away.

It is surely ‘something in return’ that made the established industries worth having, and made proposed new developments distinctly unappealing by contrast. That quid pro quo can be summed up in one syllable: jobs.

Unlike nuclear submarine-building which currently employs around 5,500 directly in Barrow shipyard, a proposed biomass plant, promising around 50 permanent jobs, was vociferously opposed by local people. Most thought the downsides could be considerable, and what was in it for them? They certainly did not think it likely they would get one of the 50 jobs on offer. Wind turbines are comparatively clean but they sustain very few local jobs.

Jobs and prosperity is still a basic deal in many areas. But what to do when the quid pro quo is not naturally there, as in the parts of the energy and other industries which may be strategically important to the UK but do not need to employ so many people and so are being rejected at a local level? We need better incentives that could lead more communities to embrace change. The coalition government recently signalled a minor shift in this direction, but its proposed levels are likely to remain insufficient for many; Labour should be looking at the whole gamut of infrastructure, considering different forms of ownership as well as cash incentives.

So if families cannot reasonably expect to get a job out of the energy development being planned in, they should instead get a permanent discount on their energy bill. That could be in the form of regular direct payments to everyone in a certain radius, or local community ownership could become a required part of onshore wind turbine construction. In future, where the cost of a development would preclude full community ownership, there could be scope to require hybrid schemes, with a mixture of private sector and community ownership, allowing a local voice in the design and operation of the asset – whether it be a power station or a road scheme – and a share of profits returning directly to the community. It is also time for government to get serious about incentivising fully or partially community-owned development through the tax system.

This new energy quid pro quo for residents would be partially offset by the mounting costs, ultimately born by bill payers, of the delayed or aborted projects that are currently clogging up the system. A further way to make this more affordable could be to take the money for resident incentives out of the amount that the company would be paying the local authority in business rates.

As well as doing more to oil the wheels on the ground, Britain at the highest level needs a much clearer sense of the infrastructure it needs, and the capacity to stick to its plan over the for major projects. The government’s national infrastructure plan is little more than a multibillion pound shopping list of measures that are largely unfunded and already well behind schedule.

In his first week as prime minister, Ed Miliband should establish a UK infrastructure board to scope out the country’s investment priorities. This should be set up by cross-party agreement, be removed from ministerial control and comprise representatives from across the economy and the nations and regions with a remit to plan out the UK’s infrastructure needs over the next 20 years.

Parliament would remain sovereign and ministers could choose to deviate from the plan, but any government that did so would have to get parliamentary approval and would be held to greater account for being seen to be going against the experts and increasing cost and.

Britain ought not to go on like this. One Nation Labour in 2015, if we are prepared to think and act radically locally and nationally, has a chance to deliver real change where successive governments have fallen short.

John Woodcock MP is a vice chair of Progress. This is an extract from The Politics of Solutions: shaping a Labour Britain, edited by Alison McGovern MP and Phil Wilson MP, published by Progress today. To download a copy please click here