Labour Must Revisit £28 billion Green Pledge: It’s Affordable, Profitable, Crucial for Net Zero and will Create Jobs

On Friday, Keir Starmer announced Labour’s net zero transition policy platform for the election, with the key plank being Great British Energy, a publicly owned company headquartered in Scotland that will invest in domestic clean energy generation through £8.3 billion in funding over the parliamentary term. While highlighting the jobs and lower prices resulting from renewables, he suggested employment would be protected as Labour would not be ‘turning off the taps’ of oil and gas, which instead would be ‘part of the mix for decades to come’. He cited a wish to avoid the brutal transition away from coal undertaken in the 20th Century. These proposals are a start, and certainly more ambitious than anything that has been set out recently by the Government. But our programme of research shows that a return to the £28 billion per year investment commitment that Labour dropped in February is affordable, would produce a massive return on investment and is essential to meeting the goals of a just transition to net zero.