No re-nationalisation of energy says Sir Keir

SIR Keir Starmer has ruled out nationalising the UK’s largest energy firms in a major departure from the leadership of Labour under Jeremy Corbyn.

But the current party leader did not exclude the possibility of another form of “common ownership” of the Big Six companies if he became prime minister, as a crisis of spiralling bills looms.

In an interview during the Labour Party conference in Brighton, Sir Keir also did not rule out raising income tax if he formed a government as he set out his principles for fairer taxation.

And he set out plans to end the charitable status of England’s private schools to raise £1.7 billion and plough funding into state schools.

Sir Keir has set the party on a course back towards centre ground after succeeding Mr Corbyn following the disastrous general election defeat to Boris Johnson.

A key ambition under his predecessor was a massive programme of renationalisation, but Sir Keir has rejected this despite a pledge when he ran for the leadership last year.

Asked if he would nationalise the

Big Six energy companies, Sir Keir told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One: “No.”

He was shown one of his 10 campaign pledges stating that “public services should be in public hands” and that he would “support common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water”.

“I don’t see nationalisation there,” Sir Keir told Marr. “When it comes to common ownership I’m pragmatic about this. I do not agree with the argument that says we must be ideological.”

But he did not say what form common ownership would take if it was not nationalisation, and neither did his aides.

“I’d be pragmatic about it, and where common ownership is value for money for the taxpayer and delivers better services, then there should be common ownership,” Sir Keir added, giving the example of track and trace. Sir Keir is likely to come under pressure from some unions not to backtrack on the vision for nationalisation.

A motion from Unite and the Communication Workers Union planned ahead of his comments urged him not to make “timid tweaks” and said there is a clear case for “extending public ownership” post-Covid.

Having criticised the Tory Government’s National Insurance hike as unfairly hitting workers, Sir Keir did not rule out increasing income tax to raise public finances.

“We are looking at tax, nothing is off the table, but we don’t know what the state of the national finances will be as we go to the election,” he told Marr.

“What we don’t want to do – whether it’s income tax, or any other sort of tax, National Insurance – is unfairly to hit working families, which is what this Government is doing.”

Sir Keir hinted at a wealth tax to rebalance the fairness of the taxation system. “Look at the choice the Government is making, under their provision, under their tax they announced the other week, those with many properties as landlords don’t pay a penny more, their working tenants do,” he added.