‘Keir Starmer can’t say boo to a goose’
The Business and Energy Secretary tells Edward Malnick politicians shouldn’t mince their words – but is more guarded when it comes to onshore wind turbines
From Kwasi Kwarteng’s corner office, the Business and Energy Secretary has commanding views over a freezing cold Westminster. If, however, he looks behind him, he can see an alternative, more summery view, of giant onshore wind turbines looming over luscious green fields.
It’s not real, of course. The wind farm scene is a big sticker, covering the glass walls of the room that houses Mr Kwarteng’s political advisers, just a few banks of desks from the Cabinet minister’s own glass-walled office.
The sticker appeared in recent weeks and, just a fortnight ago, was entirely on-brand for Mr Kwarteng, 46, who was pushing hard for a new generation of onshore turbines to help meet Britain’s energy needs. Today, however, significant opposition, including from fellow Cabinet ministers, appears to have thwarted his ambition somewhat.
“The thing with onshore wind and with fracking is that it has to be community consent,” Mr Kwarteng says, ahead of the planned publication of a new energy security strategy this week, following intense discussions with Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, over the document.
“We don’t live in a totalitarian country where the Government, the man or woman in Whitehall, can say ‘right, we’re going to do this’, without some large measure of consent from local communities. And in both of those technologies, frankly, there has been considerable local opposition. That doesn’t mean to say we’re shutting the door on both, but it does mean that any movement has to have a large measure of local consent.”
Mr Kwarteng’s comments appear a far cry from his declaration on March 21 that, while there “were quite understandable political reasons that people didn’t want to see large scale, onshore winds in their vicinity, I think that’s changed. I think people are much more open to renewable energy.”
The remarks sparked alarm in government, not least in Chris HeatonHarris, the recently-appointed chief whip, who, as a backbencher, led the parliamentary campaign that effectively killed off the rapid expansion of onshore wind under David Cameron. Many MPs also issued private warnings about the likely public backlash from embracing a return to onshore wind.
The 2015 ban followed a vociferous campaign against onshore turbines and the consumer subsidies used to make them viable. In 2012, Mr Heaton-Harris organised a letter signed by 101 Tory MPs, warning that, “in these financially straitened times, we think it is unwise to make consumers pay, through taxpayer subsidy, for inefficient and intermittent energy production that typifies onshore wind turbines”.
It is presumably with the recent backlash in mind that Mr Kwarteng’s initially guarded answers on the issue switch to spikiness when I ask, given his previous comments, if he would like to see the Government treat onshore wind farms with similar enthusiasm to its approach to their offshore equivalents.
“No. You’re trying to get me down a rabbit hole. All I’ve said is I want to have energy security, but in relation to onshore wind and fracking, we can only do those with a large measure of community consent. Now, I can’t tell you what that target is because I don’t know what the consents are going to be. How can I do that? It doesn’t make sense for me to try and answer that question without actually gauging local opinion on a lot of these things.”
Mr Heaton-Harris’s constituency website still warns that onshore wind farms cause problems including “noise, visual intrusion and their effect on wildlife”. Would Mr Kwarteng (whose Surrey constituency is notable for its lack of wind farms) be happy to live next to a set of turbines?
“Yeah, I mean I don’t have a huge antipathy to them. But I understand that communities have to make the decision. It’s not up to me, it doesn’t matter what I think. If there’s a plan in a particular community, it’s what they think that matters. It’s not my aesthetic preference that’s going to determine it.”
The strategy is, however, expected to at least moot the idea of relaxing planning laws in England to allow wind turbines to be built in places where they are not opposed. Mr Kwarteng also confirms that there is a discussion about whether locals could receive “incentives”, such as reduced energy bills, in exchange for agreeing to a wind farm in their area.
“The French frankly, are very good at that… That’s part of the discussion as well. You’re not going to get a huge consent if the residents themselves can’t benefit.”
Mr Kwarteng’s significantly tempered view of the potential for onshore wind farms in this country appears to reflect a decision taken by Mr Johnson that land-based turbines will not play a major role in the energy strategy. Instead, he focuses on nuclear energy and offshore turbines, when he talks about the strategy’s approach.
“It’s a medium-term, long-term document. It addresses the fundamental question about how we could get national security – national independence – from [our] energy supply.
“The idea is that, given what Putin is doing, we don’t want to live in a world where we’re dependent on Russian hydrocarbons. The fact is, we’re not, but we want to have more independence of supply and the strategy is very much focused on that. And within that, it looks at offshore wind, and particularly nuclear, as ways in which we can actually have electricity-generating capacity here in the UK.”
Mr Kwarteng, a Brexiteer and former City analyst, who has just returned from a trip to Germany, points out that the UK is in a stronger position than many EU countries.
“I spent 24 hours there talking at a very high level with my counterpart, the vice chancellor, Robert Habeck. There it’s a very difficult situation because, as Robert reminded me, 55 per cent of their gas is from Russia, 50 per cent of their coal is from Russia, 35 per cent of their oil is from Russia. We’re in a completely different place, and they recognise that. But we can still do more, given the high price of gas right now, to have security of supply.”
Fracking, like onshore wind, is unlikely to play a central role in the strategy, not least because of Mr Kwarteng’s own scepticism.
“I was actually the energy minister when we imposed the moratorium,” says Mr Kwarteng, who first became a minister in 2018, eight years after being elected as MP for Spelthorne, in Surrey. The moratorium on shale gas extraction in Britain was imposed in November 2019, less than four months after his appointment as energy minister. The ban was introduced “on the basis of the disturbance caused to residents” living near the Preston New Road fracking site run by Cuadrilla, the energy firm, in Lancashire, as well as the “latest scientific analysis”, the Government said at the time.
“I was personally getting letters from people who were affected by the tremors. It was the last time, dare I say it, that I had a holiday because I remember it well.
“I was in France and I was getting updates on the New Preston Road fracking [site]. And one of the days I think it was 2.9 on the Richter scale, which is quite high.
“It’s not for me to say ‘oh, it was nothing’. If people feel, and they are telling me that their houses are shaking, I have to take that at face value. So I was reading these letters and it was a matter of concern. But I want to explore our resources.”
Last month, The Sunday Telegraph disclosed that a report published by the Oil and Gas Authority stated that the effect of the 2.9 magnitude tremor equated to some 50 buildings experiencing “damage state one” (DS1), the lowest of five damage states, which involves either “no structural damage” or “slight non-structural damage which is manifested through hairline cracks in walls and damage to plaster”.
A major priority for Mr Kwarteng now will be ramping up the provision of nuclear energy in the UK. He suggests that the energy security strategy will mark a major step up in Britain’s plans for new reactors, amid a belief among senior government figures that Whitehall has been plagued with a relative inertia towards nuclear for years – particularly compared with countries like France, which derives about 70 per cent of its electricity from nuclear energy.
“I think France took a strategic view in the Seventies, that they were going to have a nationally independent energy system. For people who are interested in French history, that’s very much the De Gaulle way of doing things,” says Mr Kwarteng, a keen historian who read classics and history at Cambridge.
“He was very sceptical about Nato, as we all know, he needed to have an independent military nuclear capability, he was very keen to have an independent energy security plan, which was based entirely around nuclear energy.”
As The Sunday Telegraph disclosed a fortnight ago, Mr Sunak has baulked at the costs attached to a dramatic scaling up of nuclear energy in the UK, which is being enthusiastically driven by the Prime Minister – causing tension between the two men. In remarks that might be seen as a veiled message to the Chancellor, Mr Kwarteng adds of the French example: “It has cost a fortune – but it has given them a measure of independence which is envied, frankly, by other people on the continent.”
There is no suggestion, however, that Britain would ever rely on nuclear as heavily as the energy source is depended upon in France.
“We feel that nuclear is an important part of the mix. But we’re more nimble, I would suggest, than the French, because we have a diverse source of energy supply. They’re essentially betting the farm on nuclear. That’s their main instrument. We have a range of things. You need to have a diversity of supply because that gives you a measure of security as well, because you’re not just relying on the gas price, you’re not just relying on your nuclear fleet working.”
Currently, the Government is only committed to financing one new large-scale nuclear plant by the next election. Some MPs are pushing for the equivalent of eight large plants by 2050. What level of ambition can we now expect to see from the Government?
“With energy, you’re thinking maybe 30, even 40 years [ahead]. If we fast forward to 2050, there is a world where we have six or seven sites in the UK. That isn’t going to happen in the next two years. But it’s definitely something that we can aspire to.
“The Prime Minister said, in terms of the energy generation mix, we could see maybe a quarter of that being nuclear, I’d say 15 to 25 per cent… But obviously, you’re not going to suddenly have six new nuclear stations in the first three years. I mean, it’s physically impossible to do that.”
Mr Kwarteng confirms that ministers have agreed to set up a new body to oversee the delivery of the new plants. Asked what arguments he has used to lobby Mr Sunak for vast sums of money at a time when the Chancellor is resisting further public spending, he says: “I think it’s a long term thing. And also, we’re committed to having a vehicle which looks at this, and which actually can facilitate that, and I think there’s a measure of agreement on that. Obviously I don’t want to anticipate what’s in the strategy.
“But I think there is a realisation across government that we could do more on nuclear, and that’s why in the Prime Minister’s 10 Point Plan, which was published in November 2020, the third point was all about nuclear.”
He adds that small, modular reactors (SMRs) could be placed together on individual sites to create the equivalent output of large reactors.
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“There’s the large scale nuclear, which we know about, and the SMRs, which the Prime Minister has talked about. Essentially it’s almost like a battery of smaller reactors. So Hinkley has got two reactors, and they are 3.2 gigawatts. These smaller reactors, you could see maybe 10 on the site, where they are each maybe 300 megawatts. That’s the idea.”
Mr Kwarteng has a reputation for self-confidence and plain speaking that appears to go back some time.
Aged 18, the then Eton scholar is said to have reassured a relatively young tutor at Trinity College, Cambridge, who mentioned that this was his first time interviewing entrance candidates. “Oh don’t worry, sir, you did fine,” Mr Kwarteng is said to have told the tutor.
Two years later, he appeared on the pages of The Sun when, representing Trinity on University Challenge, he was heard to mutter “oh f---, I’ve forgotten”, having buzzed in to answer a question.
His plain speaking has, on occasion, created friction with fellow ministers. His suggestion in a television interview last year that the business department was in talks with the Treasury over a support package for collapsing energy firms sparked a major public row, when a Treasury source retorted: “This is not the first time the [Business] Secretary has made things up in interviews. To be crystal clear, the Treasury is not involved in any talks.”
Now, Mr Kwarteng rebuffs a remark by Oliver Dowden, the Conservative Party chairman and a Cabinet colleague, who warned in a speech that British people “want to see a bit of conservative pragmatism, not net zero dogma”, given the current crises.
“I hate dogma. Ask anyone who works with me… There’s no dogma, we don’t do dogma,” Mr Kwarteng says.
“I think we could do two things. I think we can get off Britain’s reliance on fossil fuels – decarbonise is the technical word – and have more energy security and greater affordability. We’re a highly innovative country.”
He also has no time for Sir Keir Starmer’s apparent struggles to define a woman, in the context of debates over trans rights. “Everyone knows their mother. Their mother is a woman. They know what that is, intuitively, it’s common sense. So this idea that politicians are literally tripping over words is, I think, pathetic.
“If someone can’t say, ‘my mother is a woman’, would I trust that person to run the country? With Keir I think he’s just trying to keep a very vocal and radicalised wing of his party on side. And so he can’t really say boo to a goose. He can’t even tell you what day it is because people will be cross. He’s juggling this crazy coalition. Let’s see how he does.”
On closer inspection, when leaving Mr Kwarteng’s office, it transpires that a paper cut-out of a small Julie Andrews figure has been mischievously stuck to the turbines mural, as a re-imagined scene from The Sound of Music. A picture of Mr Kwarteng’s face has been stuck over that of the Andrews figure.
Although a strategy document can easily be written at the eleventh hour, presumably replacing the turbines with a nuclear power plant would have presented more of a challenge.