Wednesday, April 17, 2024

Starmer to set out plans for ‘historic’ £1.8bn investment in Britain’s ports


Christopher McKeon, PA Political Correspondent
Wed, 17 April 2024 

Labour plans to kick-start a “historic investment” in Britain’s ports as part of its green spending plans.

The party has already committed to spending £1.8 billion over five years on upgrading the UK’s port infrastructure if it wins the next election as part of its flagship Green Prosperity Plan.

On a visit to the North East of England on Thursday, Sir Keir Starmer is expected to say the money will lead to the most significant upgrade of Britain’s ports in a generation and billions more pouring into the UK’s energy industry from the private sector.

Before his visit, the Labour leader said: “The legacy of 14 years of Conservative rule is Britain’s industrial strength reduced to the rubble and rust of closed-down factories.

“They have let good jobs go overseas and done nothing about it – and every community has paid the price.

“A Labour government will reindustrialise Britain, from the biggest investment in our ports in a generation to a British jobs bonus to crowd billions of investment into our industrial heartlands and coastal communities.”

Coastal constituencies have been identified as a key weathervane for the next election, having disproportionately backed winning parties over the last 40 years, and polling suggests voters living near the sea have swung behind Labour.

The planned investment in port infrastructure will form part of Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan, which had originally come with a total price tag of £28 billion per year before the party rowed back from that figure, claiming the current Government had damaged the public finances too badly.

Labour sees such investment as crucial to its plans to decarbonise electricity generation by 2030, with ports playing a key role in delivering offshore wind power among other parts of the net zero transition.

But the Conservatives have criticised the plans as unrealistic and unaffordable, claiming they would mean higher taxes or more borrowing.

Sir Keir is expected to be joined by shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and shadow net zero secretary Ed Miliband on Thursday.

Sir Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband (Jane Barlow/PA)

Ms Reeves said: “Ports are critical hubs for our nation, providing over 90% of trade into the country, connecting people, providing services for maritime energy facilities and delivering value for local communities.

“Ports will be at the centre of Labour’s plans to make Britain a clean energy superpower.”

Mr Miliband echoed this point, saying clean energy “requires flourishing national ports”.

Overall, Labour has said its plans for green investment will deliver up to 650,000 jobs over the next decade, including 35,000 in the North East, and will be funded by closing “loopholes” in the windfall tax on oil and gas companies.

Ms Reeves said: “Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan is central in our mission to grow the economy. It will deliver tens of billions of pounds of private sector investment in the industries of the future, create hundreds of thousands of well-paid jobs across the country and put more money in people’s pockets.”

Claire Coutinho, the Energy Security Secretary, accused Labour of using the announcement to distract from questions about Angela Rayner’s tax affairs.

She added: “And once again they are committing to their unfunded decarbonisation promise, which Labour themselves say costs £28 billion a year, but they have no plan to pay for it.

“Straight from the same old Labour playbook, Ed Miliband’s unfunded spending commitments will take families and businesses back to square one with higher borrowing and higher taxes.”

The £28 billion figure originally committed to by Labour, but now abandoned, was for the entirety of its Green Prosperity Plan, of which decarbonising the energy grid was only part.

Labour urged to support oil and gas sector to enable green transition

Jonathan Bunn, 
PA Political Reporter
Wed, 17 April 2024 


A Labour government should commit to supporting the UK’s oil and gas industry to aid the UK’s transition to green energy and boost the economy, a leading sector figure has said.

David Whitehouse, chief executive of the 400-member trade association Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), told the PA news agency that fossil fuels will remain crucial as millions of homes will still be reliant on oil and gas by the end of the decade, which is Labour’s “clean power” deadline.

Mr Whitehouse added that a failure to protect domestic production would leave the UK reliant on more expensive and greater-polluting imports, and threaten thousands of jobs, particularly in small communities.

When asked to comment on Labour’s energy policy and what the party should do if it wins the next election, Mr Whitehouse said: “In the debate about homegrown energy transition, we should be promoting our own jobs and our own skills. We should be promoting our own companies.

“We should be creating real value here. We should not be seeking to import energy from elsewhere. We produce it cleaner here than those other areas.

“In a world where there is a genuine cost-of-living crisis, we need economic value in our society, and if the path forward is economic growth then we want policies that recognise that and support all sectors.”

“This will not only support our small communities up and down the country, but actually will be critical to delivering on our climate change ambitions.”

The oil and gas sector is worth £20 billion a year to the UK economy and supports 200,000 jobs, including 90,000 in Scotland, across the supply chain.

Currently the industry provides about half the UK’s fossil fuel needs, with three-quarters of domestic energy dependent on oil and gas.

Labour has said it would scrap investment relief in the windfall tax on North Sea producers and halt new oil and gas licenscs, but will not end any already in place.

Mr Whitehouse said the UK can ill-afford to allow domestic oil and gas production to dwindle as significant demand is expected to last for decades to come.

He added: “By the end of the decade we will still have millions of homes reliant on gas for heating and cooking and if we don’t continue to invest in domestic supplies then will we will be relying on somewhere in the region of at least 80% on imports.

“If you look at the geopolitical world that we are in at the moment, then there will be a real concern the UK will struggle.”

The comments came as a report commissioned by OEUK found the oil and gas sector’s supply chain has between 60 and 80% of the capabilities required to develop the UK’s low carbon energy provision from floating wind power, hydrogen and carbon capture storage.

The report identified an urgent need for “strategic action” to enable supply chain companies to seize a projected 4% annual increase in spending on these new technologies.

Mr Whitehouse said it is important that both renewable energy and fossil fuel supply chains are supported so that different sectors can collaborate to “create a path for a really successful energy transition”.

He added: “There are many areas where the UK should be world-leading and the report highlights the capability that we already have in our existing oil and gas supply chain.

“If we embrace that then we can amplify those skills, build in areas we already have strength, recognise some of the bigger opportunities it starts to anchor real value in the UK economy.

“So the energy transition goes from being something we need to do from a climate change perspective to something that can also be a real driver of economic strength and the driver of high quality jobs up and down the country.

“We have got this great supply chain already, let’s use it.”

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