£900m is wiped off Grid shares in Corbyn policy gaffe

A BOTCHED announcement about Jeremy Corbyn’s plans to renationalise the National Grid wiped £900million off its share value in less than three hours yesterday.

Labour had planned to reveal details of the policy, but it was pulled after the top team chose to delay it until a less busy date.

But in a blunder, the story appeared on the BBC News website for a short period of time.

The shares fell from 880. p at 8am to 85 .20p at 10.50am, meaning that the value of the company plummeted by £893, 99,281 in just under three hours.

Traders attributed the drop to the report, which they said outlined the plan to transfer the utility back to public ownership.

The policy rekindled worries among investors about potential radical changes to public policy if Labour wins a general election.

Chris Philp, a Tory MP and vicechairman of the party, said: ‘If this is the damage Jeremy Corbyn’s plans can do in three hours, imagine the damage he would do to the country’s finances.’

Among its other policies, Labour has pledged to break up stateowned Royal Bank of Scotland.

In a speech yesterday, Confederation of British Industry director-general Carolyn Fairbairn said Labour’s renationalisation proposals would ‘do profound harm to our economy’.

In 2017, the National Grid’s chief executive John Pettigrew said renationalisation was ‘the last thing the industry needs’.

A spokesman for National Grid declined to comment. The Labour Party was not immediately available for comment.

‘Profound harm to our economy’