Labour commits to create new publicly-owned energy company

13th June 2024 | News

The Labour Party’s manifesto for the General Election on 4 July, commits to setting up Great British Energy – a new publicly-owned energy generation company. This forms one of their six ‘First Steps for Change‘ if elected. Below is an extract from the manifesto detailing their plans, so we can hold them to account.

Whilst this is a massive step in the right direction, which will see profits from offshore wind and other renewable energy generation returned to the public purse, Labour stop well short of renationalising the energy sector.

Of the big private energy supply companies, all they plan is “a much tougher system of regulation that puts consumers first” (p.54).

And although they recognise that the privatised National Grid “has become the single biggest obstacle to the deployment of cheap, clean power generation and the electrification of industry”, they make no commitments to bringing it back into public ownership, saying they “will work with industry to upgrade our national transmission infrastructure and rewire Britain” (p.55).

All we can hope is that once up-and-running, Great British Energy is a success and that it can then be expanded over the coming years to incorporate energy distribution and supply.

Extract from Labour Party Manifesto 2024:

Switch on Great British Energy

“To drive forward investment in clean, home-grown energy production, Labour will create a new publicly-owned company, Great British Energy. It will be owned by the British people and deliver power back to the British people.

Great British Energy will partner with industry and trade unions to deliver clean power by co-investing in leading technologies; will help support capital-intensive projects; and will deploy local energy production to benefit communities across the country. To support this, Labour will capitalise Great British Energy with £8.3 billion, over the next parliament.

The company will create jobs and build supply chains in every corner of the UK. Scotland will be the powerhouse of our clean energy mission, with Great British Energy headquartered there.

Local power generation is an essential part of the energy mix and reduces pressures on the transmission grid. Labour will deploy more distributed production capacity through our Local Power Plan. Great British Energy will partner with energy companies, local authorities, and co-operatives to install thousands of clean power projects, through a combination of onshore wind, solar, and hydropower projects. We will invite communities to come forward with projects, and work with local leaders and devolved governments to ensure local people benefit directly from this energy production.”