Kwarteng accused of ‘caving in’ to backbench onshore wind critics

Kwasi Kwarteng has claimed that the government is promoting onshore wind “aggressively and passionately” after being accused by Ed Miliband of caving into net-zero sceptic backbench MPs by failing to back the technology more strongly in the government’s energy security strategy.

During a debate in the House of Commons, the business and energy secretary of state was criticised by his Labour energy and climate change shadow for not going further in the strategy, which was published earlier this month when Parliament was in Easter recess.

Miliband said Kwarteng had failed to deliver his goal of doubling the UK’s onshore wind capacity by 2030, which was leaked to the press in the run up to the strategy’s publication.

The strategy says that the government will support a “limited” number of onshore wind projects in England, where tight planning rules make it very hard to get such projects built, if they can show local support.

He said: “The secretary of state and the prime minister caved in to back benchers who dislike green energy and a chancellor who refuses to make the green investments that the country needs. They cannot deliver a green energy sprint because they face both ways on green energy and simply will not make the public investment that we need.

“The truth is that this cobbled-together energy relaunch does nothing on the cost of living and fails to deliver the green sprint that we needed. When it comes to the solutions to energy security, energy bills and the climate crisis, the secretary of state has shown once again that the government cannot deliver what the national interest demands.”

But Miliband said the “biggest failure of all” in the strategy had been not providing “a penny more” for energy efficiency.

Responding to a question by shadow business minister Seema Malhotra about whether consumers will pay more of their electricity because of the government’s failure to back onshore wind, which she described as the “cleanest and cheapest” power available, Kwarteng said: “We have done more than many in driving onshore wind. The hon. Lady will know that we suspended the pot 1 auction and have brought it back, that we have more onshore wind than pretty much any other country in northern Europe, and that we continue aggressively and passionately to promote onshore wind.”