15 August 2023 , 21:31
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Labour plan to spark a clean energy jobs boom across Britain’s northern industrial heartlands and coastal areas, with a new green business bonus scheme creating up to 65,000 jobs by 2030.
The pledge to boost employment comes as deputy leader Angela Rayner prepares to visit EDF’s Hartlepool Power Station on Wednesday to discuss the party’s plans to make Britain a clean energy superpower if it wins the next election.
They say they will create up to half a million jobs across the country through clean energy production. But it is especially in those communities which once built Britain with coal, oil and gas production, from Hartlepool in the North East to Hamilton in Scotland, that Labour aims to target a new incentive scheme which will draw clean energy companies where they’re most needed.
Labour's deputy leader Angela (Andy Commins / Daily Mirror)The announcement to boost jobs in technologies like offshore wind, onshore wind, solar, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage follows Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s announcement of 100-plus new drilling licences to extract oil and gas from the north sea, prompting criticism from within his own party for a row back on net zero targets.
Speaking ahead of her visit, the deputy leader said: “This is a crucial part of Labour’s plan for cheap power for all and good jobs, which will transform the UK into a clean energy superpower and ensure that the future is built in Britain.
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“Labour’s plan will bring a clean energy employment boom to North East industrial heartlands and coastal communities, bring down bills, increase our energy security, weaning us off our reliance on fossil fuels and dictators like Putin.
“As we rebuild supply chains here at home and export the clean technology of the 21st century around the world, we will secure thousands of good, unionised jobs in Britain’s heartlands like the North East to restore pride and purpose to our people and places.”
To entice clean energy companies to target investment in these areas, Labour proposes to allocate a fund of up to £500m a year over each of its first five years in government to provide capital grants, as part of its Green Prosperity Plan.
It says it will reward those who invest in these industrial heartlands with a British Jobs Bonus (BJB) to create high-quality jobs for Britain’s construction workers, engineers, electricians, and the wider energy industry.
As further incentive, they say this will reform the way in which energy developers are awarded long-term government contracts.
In February, Labour leader Keir Starmer announced one of Labour’s Five Missions will be to make Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030, accelerating to net zero.
In contrast, Labour claims by 2020, the Tories and the SNP had delivered less than a twentieth of the offshore wind jobs that were forecast in 2010, while jobs in solar and onshore wind have dropped.
Independent analysis from Transition Economics suggests the British Jobs Bonus alone will create up to 65,000 direct and indirect jobs in clean power industries in these areas in need by 2030. Some 35,000 will be in England.
A condition of entry to the Contract for Difference auctions will also be that developers recognise and work with trade unions and ensure good wages and high standards.