Key events
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.”