Unlocking Wales’ potential and getting “Putin’s boot off our throat”: Reflections on Labour’s Great British Energy announcement

27 March 2024 | Admin

On their first joint engagement, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and First Minister Vaughan Gething visited Ynys Mon to announce plans for Great British Energy. The Leaders renewed their commitment to close partnership between UK and Welsh Labour and established a Labour Government as the key to unlocking Wales’ potential. Starmer and Gething were joined by Shadow Secretary of State of Climate Change and Net Zero, Ed Miliband and Shadow Secretary of State for Wales, Jo Stevens.

Should Labour win the next UK General election, Starmer has pledged an investment worth £8.3 billion into Great British Energy in the first 5-year term. Energy security is a key motivation behind the announcement, with Starmer making emotive references to “tyrants using energy as an economic weapon.” Indeed, recent estimates indicate that the UK imported 40% of its energy needs in 2022. GB Energy then, would reduce dependency on other nations and strengthen the UK against hostile actors. To oppose the plans would be “unpatriotic”, Starmer notes, winning ground from the Conservatives.

What it means for Wales

The message underpinning the visit was clear: 14 years of Conservative government has let Wales down and “squandered [its] green growth potential.” Gething was clear, Wales needs a Labour Government in Westminster in order to thrive.

During the visit, Wales was very much established as precedent for what a UK Labour Government will do in power. Gething drew attention to plans for Ynni Cymru, Wales’ publicly owned energy company, but cautioned that “the missing ingredient is a UK Government with the will to back Wales’ economic potential.” It was Miliband, however, who delivered the best soundbite of the visit, with his claim that “The Conservatives have let Wales down for too long – allowing good jobs to go overseas, and allowing foreign governments to profit off our own energy system whilst energy bills rocket.”

Practically and beyond campaign rhetoric, Starmer’s announcement is set to deliver 29,000 jobs in Wales over the next decade and will see improvement works undertaken to ports to facilitate floating offshore wind developments. Starmer was also grilled about nuclear power on Ynys Mon, which he welcomed.

Cross party criticism

Though welcomed by many in the renewable energy sector, the announcement has come under fire from across the political spectrum, as one might expect given Labour’s dominance in recent polls.

RenewablesUK Executive Director, Jane Cooper, praised Labour’s recognition that floating wind was a “huge economic opportunity” for Wales and the UK, more broadly.

The Conservatives have sought to stoke fears about tax burdens and claimed that this is “unfunded spending.” However speaking to Times Radio Breakfast, Shadow Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens, indicated that the policy is costed and that money will be sourced from a 75% windfall tax on oil and gas producers until GB Energy becomes profitable. In reaction, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Claire Coutinho, said “Not only does he not have a plan of his own, but he also voted against our North Sea Oil and Gas Bill, which will protect over 200,000 jobs and maximise our energy security.” When GB Energy was first announced in September 2023, Common Wealth undertook polling which indicated that 72% of Conservative voters think that setting up a state-owned energy company is a good idea.

Adrian Ramsay, co-leader of the Green Party, described Labour’s £8.3bn investment plan as “a drop in the ocean”, dismaying over Labour’s recently dropped pledge for £28 billion worth of green investment and pledged that the Green Party would see that wind power provides 70% of the UK’s electricity by 2030.

Plaid Cymru described Labour’s plan as “unambitious” and “re-hashed”.