KEIR STARMER IN N.WALES WITH FIRST MINISTER AS ENERGY VISION OUTLINED
LABOUR leader Sir Keir Starmer was in North Wales on Monday to set out his party’s plans for clean energy - which included floating wind farms.
Sir Keir was joined by the new first minister, Vaughan Gething, to unveil ‘Great British Energy’ in a bid to ‘get Putin’s boot off our throat’ should his party win power at the next UK General Election.
Sir Keir said he wants the UK to lead the world on floating offshore wind, which he confirmed will be the ‘priority’ of a Labour government’s publicly-owned clean energy company.
On a visit to Holyhead with new First Minister Vaughan Gething, the Labour leader said GB Energy will ‘put in the money’ in floating wind farms to ‘ensure private investors come in behind us.’
The Tories have attacked Labour’s plan as ‘unfunded,’ though Sir Keir branded the claims as ‘unpatriotic.’
Labour has already announced that GB Energy, a new state-owned company with an initial £8.3bn budget to invest in clean homegrown power and make Britain energy secure, will be headquartered in Scotland.
Speaking to the BBC in Holyhead, Sir Keir said: “I think it’s (floating offshore wind) going to be one of the main drivers for the future.
“I think there’s a reason we should make it a priority in the UK because we’ve got the skills, the infrastructure, we’ve got a track record when it comes to static offshore wind.
“And look, frankly, some country in the world is going to get ahead on this, and lead and I want that to be the UK which is why we’ve made it a priority, and said today that GB Energy will be investing in it.
“That’s a huge decision because that will ensure that private investors come in behind us and it gives us scope then to also link it with our plan for ports infrastructure. Making sure we get the ports of the future, and the British jobs bonus, so that the jobs go with the technology. So I think it’s great future here, we’ve got ambition here for this to be a big significant part of our renewables by 2030.
“This is a bit of evidence as to how serious we are. These are conversations that I want to have now, rather than after the election so that we can hit the ground running.”
Sir Keir was visiting the port alongside shadow environment minister Ed Miliband and shadow Welsh secretary Jo Stevens.
Ms Stevens said the money needed to launch GB Energy will be sourced from a 78% windfall tax on oil and gas producers.
She told Times Radio Breakfast that Labour would also be ‘borrowing to invest, not borrowing to binge’ in raising the funds needed for the ‘exciting, bold and ambitious plan.’
She said the Conservatives
had ‘crashed’ the economy with ‘shortsighted’ decisions.
Ms Stevens added: “We’ve had no industrial strategy in this country for 14 years under the Tories.”
The Great British Energy company was described by Ms Stevens as a network of ‘jobs and infrastructure that will be built to last.’
Commenting on Keir Starmer’s visit to North Wales, Andrew RT Davies MS, Leader of the Welsh
Conservatives said: “Labour will take us back to square one with their extortionate and unfunded spending pledges.
“The only thing Labour’s extreme decarbonisation plans will deliver is higher taxes and higher energy bills for the people of Wales and the UK.
“The Conservatives have a plan to get Wales moving with a focus on clean energy, investing in North Wales by purchasing the Wylfa site, putting
Wales at the centre of the UK’S nuclear ambition.”
Labour’s plans for the oil and gas industry could see the UK ‘move towards being uninvestable,’ the sector’s biggest trade body has said.
In a briefing for journalists, Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) said the sector was facing ‘big challenges’ over licensing and taxation.
“We have uncertainty on future licensing policy,” said Ross Dornan, the body’s marketing intelligence manager. “Labour policy, for example, is to end the issuing of new licences in the UK. We’re seeing tax changes, with further tax changes being proposed by Labour if they’re to be elected.”
“This all comes together with some other challenges too to make it a really difficult investment environment in the UK.”
Specifically on taxation - with Labour pledges including to not only keep the extension of the windfall tax to 2029 in place, but increase the rate from 75% to 78% if it wins the keys to Downing Street - Mr Dornan said: “We’ve seen four tax regimes in two years and we’ve seen further changes proposed by Labour aimed at increasing the headline rate of tax and cutting allowances.
“I think this would really make the UK move towards being uninvestable, from a number of fronts.”