Starmer will scrap £28bn green pledge, says Balls

ED BALLS has predicted that Sir Keir Starmer will ditch Labour’s flagship £28billion green pledge.

The former Labour shadow chancellor said the party would need to make a “big U-turn” on the figure to shut down the Tory attack line that Labour will be irresponsible with Britain’s finances.

Sir Keir initially pledged to borrow £28billion annually to fund green projects from year one if the party were to win power, but has watered down that commitment over recent months.

A Labour spokesman last week reiterated the party’s commitment to “ramp up to £28billion of annual investment in the second half of the parliament”, but clarified that this would have to be “subject to our fiscal rules”. But Mr Balls has said the party will have to scrap the number altogether.

Mr Balls, who was shadow chancellor between 2011 and 2015, told the Political Currency podcast that Labour had “tried partial U-turns” on the policy which had not worked. “They won’t resile from the idea that that’s a way to grow some jobs,” he said.

“They won’t resile from the idea that you can spend now to strengthen the economy in the long term. But I think they’ll have to come off this £28billion number. They’ll have to say the £28 billion number is gone, that it’s ditched or else they can be open to this attack.”

He added: “You need something which looks like a U-turn. And I think that that’s what they’re going to end up doing. They’ve tried partial U-turns. It hasn’t worked. They need a big U-turn.”

Earlier this month, Sir Keir downplayed the £28billion pledge, telling the BBC that “the mission isn’t writing a cheque, the mission is green power by 2030. “We are not rowing back on that. That is the absolute mission, the ambition that we are going to do that,” he insisted.

The Sunday Times reported that the number will not appear in the Labour general election manifesto, having been absent in the party’s so-called “campaign bible” which came out last week.