'The Tories are in meltdown over energy - it's time to fight for British jobs'

10 June 2023 , 20:11

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Ed Miliband says the Tories are failing to deliver the energy Britain needs (Image: Getty Images)

The Tory party is melting down again with Boris Johnson’s resignation. The tragedy is that when they should be running the country they are fighting within their party.

Nowhere is that more true than on energy policy. Every family has seen their bill go through the roof in the last 2 years. There’s a simple reason for that—our dependence on oil and gas which is priced on the international market. That means that for as long as we are so dependent on these fossil fuels, we’re at the mercy of dictators like Putin.

The problem is that instead of acting on that lesson, the Tories are failing to deliver the homegrown power Britain needs. They continue to block onshore wind, despite the fact that their ban has driven your bills up by £180 a year since 2015. They have dithered and delayed when it comes to new nuclear. And on oil and gas, they have thrown billions in subsidies at the very same companies that have made record profits at your expense.

And it’s even worse than that because we could be creating good, secure, unionised jobs in the industries of the future like making wind turbines but the Tories won’t do that either. President Biden in the US is winning that future for America but the government here is waving the white flag when it comes to the race for those jobs.

"The government here is waving the white flag in the race for energy jobs" (BristolLive)

Labour will chart a different course. We have a world leading Green Prosperity Plan to double onshore wind, triple solar power and quadruple offshore wind to get cheap, clean, homegrown power for Britain by 2030. Your electricity bills won’t be at the mercy of the political thugs of the world.

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We will continue to use the existing fields of our North Sea oil and gas for decades to come, but we won’t be issuing licenses to explore new fields, which won’t take a penny off bills and are a climate disaster. We will be focused on deploying the technologies that will power our future and make us energy secure and will work in partnership with industry and workers to deliver a jobs transition that utilises all the talent and expertise in this sector.

As Keir Starmer said this week, too many times politicians see change as something to stand and stare at in awe. Not us. Labour understands what is at stake and will not stand by and let industry wither and leave communities decimated, not when there are jobs in new industries to be won.

And we are determined to win the race for those good jobs of the future. It’s time to fight for Britain and bring power home so we’ll set up GB energy, a publicly owned energy generation company. Like EDF in France, it will generate clean power, investing in the new technologies that can win for Britain

We’ll invest in our ports so they can transport the enormous wind turbines, in electric battery factories so we can have a thriving car industry and in steel so we keep those good, well paid jobs. We’ll also create hundreds of thousands of good jobs insulating homes—a plan that can cut energy bills by up to £1,000 for millions of families.

The Tories will tell you we can’t afford to invest in these jobs of the future. Labour says we can’t afford not to invest. We have a plan for lower energy bills, good jobs, energy security and climate leadership, built on the rock of economic responsibility.

The Tories can never do that because they are fighting like rats in a sack and they won’t stand up for you. It’s time to sweep away the Tories and have a Labour government putting you first.

Ed Miliband