Ed Miliband has pledged to get Vladimir “Putin’s boot” off the UK’s “throat” with the government’s new company GB Energy.
The energy security and net zero secretary is today unveiled a plan to use the British seabed (owned by the royals) to build wind farms.
This will supposedly create renewable energy and eventually lead to lower bills for the public.
PM Keir Starmer even promised today to knock £300 off energy bills by 2029.
Speaking to Times Radio, Miliband said that renewable energy “is the cheapest form of power”.
He said: “That’s the key thing...Putin’s boot is on our throat, as Keir Starmer says, because we are exposed to those global fossil fuel markets.”
Along with much of Western Europe, the UK relied on Russia’s cheap fossil fuel exports for our energy supplies until 2022.
When Putin invaded Ukraine, the West wanted to isolate Russia as punishment.
It weaned itself off the cheap Russian supplies, subsequently causing energy prices to spike for households and leading to the cost of living crisis.
Though this new plan is meant to help bring bills down again, Miliband refused to guarantee that they would fall anytime soon.
Asked on Times Radio if this meant prices could fall by autumn, the minister said: “It’s certainly the case that bills will be lower than they would otherwise be in a world of volatile fossil fuel prices.
“That is the key point, that this is an insurance policy, a protection against the kind of price spikes that fossil fuels cause us.”
He continued: “Energy bills are expected by independent broadcasters to rise again in the autumn.
“That’s not because of anything we’re doing as a country, it’s because of what’s happened to the gas price internationally.
“The way to get off that, the way to protect ourselves is with clean energy, solar, renewable, all kinds of renewables, nuclear power is part of it, and so on. So that is the driving logic of this government.”
Still, Miliband told Radio 4′s Today programme: “Millions of people around our country have suffered from the worst energy bills crisis in decades in our country and this government says: Never again.
“And the only answer to never again, is to get off fossil fuels.”
“I can’t control what Putin is doing and geopolitics drives energy insecurity. We’ve got to get off that and look, we’re willing to have this argument,” he added.
He also promised to build 300 new turbines a year, offering up to 30GW of new offshore wind by the end of the decade.
Back on Times Radio, Miliband added that the government is “deadly serious about our mission for 2030 clean power”.
He took a swipe at the former government too, saying: “We’re doing something that I think people have not got used to in this country, which is actually a government elected to deliver something and straining absolutely every sinew to deliver it.”
Although Miliband said Britain will need to carry on using fossil fuels “for many years” because there’s no “quick fix`’, GB Energy will receive £8.3bn of public money over the course of the parliament to invest in green tech.
The Crown Estate is likely get more money due to this partnership, too.
He added that the existing fields in the North Sea would stay open, but Labour will not be issuing new licences.
The Conservatives have slammed the policy as “nothing but a gimmick that will end up costing families”.
Shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho said: “Labour have already been forced to admit that their flagship energy company won’t generate any energy, and now we know it’s a financial black hole - funnelling taxpayer’s money into reducing risk for multi-million-pound energy companies.”