Labour bows to union barons and cuts 2030 carbon neutral target
Flagship policy in tatters as manifesto pledge is watered down twice amid pressure from GMB boss
LABOUR has shelved a target for the UK to become carbon neutral by 2030 after caving in to union barons over the flagship environmental pledge.
The Daily Telegraph has been told that Labour’s manifesto does not commit to a hard deadline but instead promises to make “substantial progress” towards reaching net-zero emissions within a decade.
A draft version, drawn up by Jeremy Corbyn’s policy team last week, had already been watered down due to concerns that a fixed target would be impossible to achieve within 10 years.
However, the policy is understood to have been revised again on Saturday, after one of Labour’s biggest trade union backers demanded changes.
According to sources present at the “Clause V” summit of senior Labour and union officials, Tim Roache, the GMB general secretary, demanded the wording be downgraded from “overwhelming progress” to “substantial”.
It came as Mr Corbyn last night deleted a social media post, published earlier in the day, which stated that the UK would be “carbon neutral by 2030 only with Labour”. The post is believed to have been deleted after Mr Corbyn’s office was contacted by a reporter.
Labour has promised a green industrial revolution if it wins power and plans to establish a £250billion “green transformation fund” to oversee a radical overhaul of the economy.
Mr Corbyn will today promise to deliver 320,000 apprenticeships in green industries, which Labour says will form part of its drive to tackle a “climate emergency”.
They will be delivered over a fiveyear term and paid for by asking businesses to divert 25 per cent of the money they already pay into the Apprenticeship Levy. Additional funding will come from proceeds from Labour’s Inclusive Ownership Funds, which entails handing 10 per cent of shares in large companies, worth an estimated £300billion, to their staff.
Mr Roache is also said to have questioned the viability of a proposal to make all UK households energy efficient by 2030, pointing out that 26 million homes are currently heated by gas.
One insider said: “Tim said 26million houses use gas boilers and changing those in the time that is left, by 2030... I don’t think there are enough gas fitters in the world to achieve that.”
They said other union leaders had previously voiced concern at the impact that radical environmental policies could have on jobs in heavy industry, transport and aviation sectors.
Mr Roache is understood to have left the meeting to talk to Rebecca Longbailey, the shadow business secretary, who agreed to alter the wording.
The disclosure is likely to anger Labour’s grass-roots activists, who just two months ago passed a motion at the party’s annual conference committing it to some of the most ambitious environmental targets in Europe.
Labour has also dropped a proposal to hand private tenants a “right to buy” their rented homes from landlords, despite John Mcdonnell making it one of his top priorities.
“We had a fairly big backlash from some Labour candidates,” a party insider said of the policy last night. “It was coming up on the doorstep. It wasn’t good politics.”
Mr Corbyn claimed yesterday that Labour’s immigration system would allow a “great deal of movement”, as he refused five times to say whether the UK should stay in the EU.
Asked whether Labour would again adopt its 2017 election pledge to end freedom of movement, he told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show that the policy would become clear when the manifesto is launched on Thursday.
However, The Telegraph understands that the manifesto fails to commit one way or the other on freedom of movement, instead acknowledging that immigration will be subject to fresh Brexit negotiations with the EU.
Several sources who have seen the document say the issue has been “fudged” to appease trade union leaders and shadow cabinet ministers who represent Leave-voting seats.
Under the plan, freedom of movement will be unchanged if the UK votes Remain in a second referendum.
However, as part of a Labour Brexit deal with Brussels, Mr Corbyn intends to secure a “new arrangement” on immigration that “will guarantee the existing rights of EU citizens in the UK and British residents in the EU”.
Senior Labour frontbenchers claim this does not categorically rule out keeping freedom of movement, which would be demanded by the EU in return for access to the single market.
The manifesto will also include plans to fund a string of local authority-operated bus services, free for under-25s, which would run in conjunction with a state-owned rail network.
The proposal forms part of Labour’s plan to reverse the privatisation of public services initiated by Margaret Thatcher.
Labour will also promise to introduce a windfall tax on oil companies, according to The Mail on Sunday.