Labour defends Great British Energy plan amid concern over funding – UK politics live | Politics
Key events
Libby Brooks
With the timetable for the Scottish Conservative leadership contest yet to be set, and only one candidate – current justice spokesperson Russell Findlay – declared, the debate around the nature of the party itself continues.
Murdo Fraser – a veteran Tory MSP who stood for leadership against Ruth Davidson in 2013 on a platform of splitting off from the UK Conservatives – has revisited this idea, after a number of colleagues called for further discussion of it during the leadership contest, in particular if the UK party indicated a move to the right following its general election defeat.
Fraser told the Holyrood Sources podcast that he was interested in the Canadian model, whereby the UK Tory party would still fight elections in Scotland but not at Holyrood, where a centre-right grouping much more focused on devolved matters would take its place.
Fraser noted that the Scottish Conservative brand was already considered “distinct” from the UK party by many voters, which was “a positive for us”.
But supporters of Findlay have suggested that such a move would be “catastrophic” for the party’s chances at the 2026 Holyrood elections, while Davidson herself was blunter still, telling the Mail yesterday that “a divided party is a short route to electoral suicide”.
Robert Jenrick enters race for Conservative party leadership
Robert Jenrick will run for the Conservative party leadership, the Telegraph reports.
According to the publication, Jenrick’s campaign team announced that the former immigration minister had the support of the 10 Conservative MPs he needed to make it on to the ballot paper.
Jenrick will become the third Tory MP to formally declare their candidacy, joining James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat.
Conservative leadership candidate Tom Tugendhat has denied that his suggestion that he would be prepared to leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR) is political opportunism.
“No, I’ve been very, very clear I am prepared to make any decision that will keep the British people safe,” he told GB News when questioned about his change of tone on the issue. He added:
I am prepared to leave the ECHR, or indeed any other institution that doesn’t serve the interests of the British people.”
Tugendhat talked up his experience as former security minister and in the armed forces, saying he has a “track record of delivery” for the British people.
He also said he believes he could turn around the Tories’ disastrous election result as party leader and pointed to Labour’s landslide win after a poor result in 2019.
The Tory leadership contender was asked on BBC Breakfast if he believed he could win an election as leader of the Conservative party in five years’ time:
Yes, it is possible to do that. You’ve got to restore trust. You’ve got to demonstrate delivery and you’ve got to be able to listen to the British people to make sure you understand where the challenges are.
But you can look at what Keir Starmer achieved, frankly, he went from his worst electoral result to his best in five years. We can do the same but we need to be united. We need to regain the trust of the British people and we need to be ready to deliver.”
Tugendhat said he had been surprised by Liz Truss’s recklessness as he was quizzed about previously backing her.
“I stood against every other leadership contender at the last time and then I was left with the choice of two,” he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
He added: “Liz demonstrated a recklessness that surprised all of us.”
Tugendhat dodged questions of whether backing Truss and her economic plan showed a lack of judgment on his part.
He said:
What we need to be doing is focusing on the challenges that are facing us in the future. Over the last three, four years – you’re absolutely right. We have failed to deliver. That’s exactly why I’m standing because I think we need to unite this country. We need to rebuild that trust, and we need to deliver.”
Offshore wind to power 20m homes within five years, Starmer to pledge
Kiran Stacey
Keir Starmer will promise to build enough offshore wind over the next five years to power 20m homes, by using taxpayer money to develop parts of the seabed owned by the royal family.
The prime minister will announce details of the government’s energy generation company, known as Great British Energy, during a visit to the north-west designed to highlight the government’s promises on green energy.
The energy company will be given £8.3bn of public money over the course of the parliament to invest in green technologies, with a target to develop an extra 20-30GW of offshore wind power through a tie-up with the crown estate.
Ministers are hoping that investment will help persuade companies to spend another £60bn in an attempt to hit the government’s target of decarbonising Britain’s power sector by 2030.
Starmer said:
This innovative partnership between Great British Energy and the crown estate is an important step toward our mission for clean energy by 2030, and bringing down energy bills for good.
This agreement will drive up to £60bn in investment into the sector, turbocharging our country toward energy security, the next generation of skilled jobs, and lowering bills for families and business.
This new partnership will help accelerate the deployment of clean energy we need, help generate good jobs in our country and generate wealth for the taxpayer.”
Great British Energy forms the centrepiece of the government’s green agenda, under which ministers are promising to deliver clean power by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.
You can read the full piece by Kiran Stacey and Fiona Harveyhere:
‘It’s going to take time’ for GB Energy to start making money, says Ed Miliband
Energy secretary Ed Miliband has said “it’s going to take time” for GB Energy to start making money.
Legislation to establish the state-owned energy company needs to go through the House of Commons, and the government has set aside £8.3bn to invest in new windfarms and solar projects, which must get built before GB Energy can start generating a return, he told BBC Breakfast.
“Within the lifetime of this parliament it will start generating returns,” he said.
Miliband said:
Within a couple of years, as we build new onshore wind, new solar, we’ll start to see the effect on bills, but there are lots of things going on here. So our exposure to gas prices, which are set internationally, is something I don’t control.
In a sense, the whole point of what I’m saying is we’ve got to get off that lack of control where dictators like [Vladimir] Putin control the fossil fuel market, because I can’t promise you what’s going to happen to gas prices.
But I can say that, if we drive to clean, homegrown British energy, we will have much more control over what happens to bills.”
Ed Miliband pledges that Britain will ‘never again’ face an energy bills crisis
Emily Dugan
Ed Miliband has pledged that Britain will “never again” face an energy bills crisis as he tries to wean the country off fossil fuels.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, the energy security and net zero secretary said:
Millions of people around our country have suffered from the worst energy bills crisis in decades in our country and this government says: Never again … And the only answer to never again, is to get off fossil fuels.”
Introducing the government’s legislation to create the public owned company Great British Energy, Miliband said that a reliance on fossil fuels left the country dependent on global markets.
“I can’t control what Putin is doing and geopolitics drives energy insecurity. We’ve got to get off that and look, we’re willing to have this argument,” he said
Miliband also pledged that the move was “going to lead to lower bills over the parliament because every solar panel we put up every onshore wind turbine we build gives us greater energy security and lowers our exposure to these gyrations of the fossil fuel market.”
Labour defends GB energy plan amid concern over funding
Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s latest UK politics live blog. I’m Amy and I’ll be bringing you updates today.
The legislation to create Great British Energy (GB Energy) will be introduced at Westminster today.
Labour has vowed to create a publicly owned energy generation company headquartered in Scotland to drive the government’s goal of making the UK a “clean energy superpower”. The exact location of the HQ will be revealed “soon”, the government said.
The secretary of state for energy security and net zero, Ed Miliband, has been on the media rounds this morning and he told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today Programme that GB Energy is a “crucial tool” to tackle the country’s energy insecurity and the climate crisis. He said it would “give us that energy security we’ve so sorely lacked for many decades in this country”.
Miliband said:
The central mandate on which this government was elected was that our exposure to fossil fuels lead to the cost of living crisis and our mission is to become a clean energy superpower.”
Asked about Labour’s plan to not issue any new gas and oil licences in the North Sea and how critics have said it could increase the UK’s dependence on foreign energy, Miliband replied:
If fossil fuels had given us energy security we wouldn’t have seen the terrible cost of living crisis that we’ve seen over the past two years.
The energy company will be given £8.3bn of public money over the course of the parliament to invest in green technologies, with a target to develop an extra 20-30GW of offshore wind power through a tie-up with the crown estate.
Critics have argued that a substantially larger sum of money is needed for changes to be implemented. Defending the plan, Miliband said:
This is about private and public investment together. This is a government in a hurry on behalf of the British people.”
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