Labour’s mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower will “cut bills, create jobs and provide energy security” Keir Starmer will today pledge, as he unveils Labour’s plans to sweep away the planning barriers that stand in the way of a clean energy revolution.
Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan will be the catalyst for these changes. It will increase Britain’s supply of clean, home-grown energy while ensuring we have the energy we need to grow our economy, boost industrial competitiveness and cut costs for consumers.
The planned changes include overturning the Conservatives’ ban on new onshore wind, which – despite being the cheapest, quickest form of clean power – has been effectively banned in England since 2015. Just three wind farms have been built and become operational since. Remarkably, Ukraine has built more onshore wind farms than England in the months since Russia’s invasion.
The ban has cost families a staggering £5.1bn per year on energy bills, equivalent to £182 per household per year, because of the more expensive power that Britain has had to buy instead. Labour would remove the loophole that means it is easier to build an incinerator than a wind turbine, and bring the planning rules for onshore wind in line with other forms of infrastructure.
The problems in the planning system do not end there. It can take up to 13 years to develop a new offshore wind farm. For example, the Hornsea 1 wind farm off the Yorkshire coast was commissioned under the last Labour Government, but didn’t come online until 2019. Moreover, the backlog in power projects connecting to the National Grid has now got so bad that projects from the latest leasing round last year have been told they will not get a grid connection until 2033 – over a decade later.
As part of his mission launch, Keir Starmer is today pledging to sweep away those planning barriers.
He is announcing a Labour government will,lift the onshore wind ban in the first months after it comes to power and will reduce the time projects take in planning from years to months with tough new targets
Ensure that communities always benefit from the clean energy infrastructure they host and to ensure every relevant regulator has a net zero mandate
He will promise to end the duplication and bureaucracy of the current system when it comes to the consenting process of offshore wind and will require local authorities to proactively identify areas suitable for renewable generation
Speaking in Scotland with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, and Shadow Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, the Labour leader will set out how Labour’s plan will deliver urgent action to cut energy bills and deliver good jobs for Britain.
The action on planning is in stark contrast to the Tories, who have repeatedly bowed to pressure from anti-building backbenchers and councillors and scrapped housebuilding targets and delayed vital infrastructure.
Keir Starmer will say:
“We can cut bills, create jobs and provide energy security for Britain – that’s what a Labour Government will deliver.
“We’ve got to roll up our sleeves and start building things, run towards the barriers – the planning system, the skills shortages, the investor confidence, the grid.
“If the status quo isn’t good enough – we must find the reforms that can restart our engine. I’m not going to accept a situation where our planning system means it takes thirteen years to build an offshore wind-farm.”
In his speech, Keir Starmer will set out how a Labour government will capture the economic opportunities of the transition to net zero, saying that:
“We’re going to throw everything at this: planning reform, procurement, long-term finance, R&D, a strategic plan for skills and supply chains.
A new plan for a new settlement. A clear direction across all four nations. Pulling together for a simple, unifying priority: British power for British jobs.”
Starmer will set out the urgent action that Labour will take in its first year in government, so that by 2030 the UK will be the first major country in the world to run on 100% clean and affordable power, with lower bills for all.
He will pledge that a Labour government will act fast to lead the world with 100% clean and affordable power by 2030, backing the builders not the blockers so Britain gets the cheap power we need
Labour will establish GB Energy – a new home-grown, publicly-owned champion in clean and affordable power generation – to build jobs and supply chains here at home and set up the National Wealth Fund, which will create good, well-paying jobs by investing alongside the private sector in gigafactories, clean steel plants, renewable-ready ports, green hydrogen and energy storage
The party also pledges to upgrade nineteen million cold homes with our Warm Homes Plan so that families have cheaper energy bills, permanently, with warm, future-proofed homes.
The Green Prosperity Plan will they say cut energy bills for good, taking up to £1,400 off household bills and £53 billion off energy bills for businesses by 2030 and create good jobs, by rebuilding the strength of our industrial heartlands and coastal communities, creating over a million jobs in ten years.
Labour will build a power system run entirely by cheap, clean, home-grown power by the end of this decade.
From a world-leading offshore wind industry in Scotland and the East Coast, hydrogen in the North-West and Teesside, nuclear power in the East of England, and solar power in the South and Midlands, GB Energy will unleash Britain’s potential with thousands of good, well-paid jobs across our country.
