‘Labour’s energy plans must be bolder or risk losing votes to the Greens’

This week, Keir Starmer outlined his fourth ‘mission’ for a future Labour government, introducing the leadership’s plans to combat the “twin risks of climate change and energy security” looming large today.

In his speech – made alongside Rachel Reeves, Ed Miliband and Anas Sarwar – Starmer repeated a slew of promises, including creating thousands of green jobs, reforming local planning regulations to build more onshore wind farms and empowering local communities with green energy.

These are all positive steps, even if gaps remain, and Labour is right to marry the case for climate action and good, green jobs. But this programme does not yet adequately tackle the burning crises of a planet on fire and an unequal, failing economy ill-equipped for the transition.

For a fair transition, Labour must be far bolder in its energy policy

To promote a green economy for the many, not just a profiteering few, Labour must be bolder. Yet, on home insulation, we fear the party may water down its commitments, given the leadership’s record for policy U-turns. Instead, we should be ramping up insulation efforts in poverty-stricken areas and across the board, necessary to tackle regional inequality and support working class communities amidst soaring bills. Success requires large-scale state intervention; the Tories’ market schemes have been shown time and again not to be up to the task, just as they have left our public services in the gutter.

Boldness is needed elsewhere, too. Oil and gas companies have repeatedly shown that they are not serious about our climate goals. Just last week, Shell announced plans to slow the phase-out of oil extraction, while shareholder payouts blossom. Given Shell’s existing commitment would have decreased oil production by just 1-2% a year, we know that the private sector cannot be trusted to deliver on even the most meagre climate commitments.

Rather than kowtowing to the demands of profiteering energy companies, Labour should commit to renationalising energy. By championing publicly-owned energy power – a highly popular and timely policy once backed by Starmer – Labour could become the driving force for rapid decarbonisation and cheaper bills.

The party’s plans lack the large-scale state intervention needed

There’s history to draw on, too. The transformation of the grid between 1950 and 1975 helps illustrate the state’s impact in energy transformation. Starmer even reflected on the success of this transformation in his speech but omitted the fact that it relied on the grid being under public ownership. Since then, it’s been replaced by a privatised system that has weakened the grid with decades of underinvestment, including payouts to shareholders of nearly £9bn in the last five years, while the energy distribution networks rank as the most profitable industry in the country.

Relying on private companies to usher in the grid expansion required to accommodate our more complex, fragmented and uncoordinated clean energy system is at best naive, at worst foolhardy. Labour still isn’t prepared to tackle the climate emergency through the state intervention that think tanks like Common Wealth have shown is needed.

This is evident with Labour’s pledge to create a publicly-owned energy company in Great British Energy. Although it has significant potential, details released around this ‘mission’ suggest that it is heading in the wrong direction. Labour is taking inspiration from Blairism by ‘crowding-in’ and ‘de-risking’ private investments, rather than building up assets owned by the public. But there’s no value in a publicly-run company being used to prop up private firms, and GB Energy risks falling short of its admirable goals, as Mary Robertson has argued.

Nor is the scale of GB Energy sufficient. Labour’s ambition is for 55 gigawatt of offshore wind by 2030, along with 50 gigawatt of solar and 35 gigawatt of onshore wind, with more to be generated from other sources. The GB Energy plan sets out a much smaller figure to be overseen by the publicly-owned company – up to 8GW – including through partnership with private energy companies, as well as councils and co-operatives.

The Tories have vacated the pitch – Labour must seize the agenda

With a general election in sight and the Tories in turmoil, it’s looking likely that Labour is heading for a ballot box victory. However, with the world on track to breach 1.5 degrees warming by 2027 – the year by which Labour proposes to have ramped up to £28bn of green public investment per year through its green prosperity plan – Labour must face up to the rapid action required to minimise catastrophic climate disasters at home and abroad.

Shelving transformative plans is not the answer. Take the delay in rolling out its £28bn-a-year plan or refusing to withdraw licences for the ecocidal Rosebank oil field. As temperatures soar, putting the brakes on substantive climate policy only raises questions about the leadership’s ability to reach its own targets (particularly 100% clean electricity by 2030) and risks opening up the party to a Green flank.

Moreover, a failure to properly invest in a just transition will inevitably see workers bear the brunt of future economic turmoil. Prioritising the green prosperity plan would give Labour the economic firepower to create millions of green, unionised jobs whilst tackling the climate and cost-of-living crises together. But it takes ambition – and money. As the IPPR said this week, any progressive government must be prepared to challenge the UK’s prevailing investment-phobia – a phobia forged in Fleet Street.

Ed Miliband has rightly said the Tories have vacated the pitch on climate and energy. Their legacy is the impeding of a renewables revolution, subsidies for fossil fuels and sky-high energy bills. Labour has an opportunity to offer a bold, popular and transformative vision for a green new deal. Plainly, there’s a lot further to go. That’s why we’re encouraging Labour members to take our template conference motion to their Constituency Labour Parties and keep up the pressure ahead of the manifesto.