Labour plans to build 37 offshore wind farms with public stake

Labour has unveiled plans to build a new fleet of state backed offshore wind farms.

Rebecca Long Bailey MP, shadow business and energy secretary, will announce Labour’s plans later today to build 37 new offshore wind farms in which the state will have a 51 per cent stake.

Under its ‘People’s Power Plan’, Labour aims to deploy 52GW of offshore wind by 2030, providing enough electricity for 57 million households.

The party aims to use a one fifth share of all profits from the publicly owned stake to invest between £600 million to £1.02 billion each year in the infrastructure of coastal communities such as harbour fronts, leisure centres, libraries and parks.

The remaining 80 per cent of profits from the public stake will be reinvested into new renewables generation, improvements to the wider energy system and climate transition.

Labour says its plans for Regional Energy Agencies mirrors the role of public energy companies in Belgium, Germany and Denmark.

It claims its plans will generate a total of £83 billion of government and private sector investment and around 67,000 unionised, skilled jobs.

The Labour announcement follows the announcement of last week’s contract for difference auction which showed that the costs of offshore wind is plunging.

Long Bailey said: “Britain has long benefited from its windy shores, with the wind playing an essential role in our history as a seafaring nation. Our wind will soon become our largest energy source.

“While UK’s offshore wind industry is still young, the UK has the opportunity to avoid replicating Britain’s experience with North Sea Oil and instead to learn from countries such as Norway and Sweden by owning what is already ours.

“By taking a stake in offshore wind, we can collectively benefit from the profits, investing them back into our held back coastal communities. That wind will turn into harbour fronts and libraries. Instead of jackets for wind farms located in Scotland being made in Indonesia, we’ll bring those jobs back to Fife.

“As part of our Green Industrial Revolution  – we can tackle the climate emergency and create a better economy for us all.”

The announcement is due to be unveiled during the conference later today when delegates will debate two contesting motions pushing for a so called Green New Deal.

One motion backs cutting UK emissions to net zero by 2030 while another, backed by the GMB union, does not include this date.

Sue Ferns, senior deputy general secretary at the union Prospect, said Labour’s focus on driving up low carbon generation while encouraging quality unionised UK jobs is “welcome”.

“As we decarbonise electricity generation it is essential that we retain the jobs and skills that we have in traditional generation and create new jobs – a strong government role could be central to delivering that. It can also help to ensure that the high safety standards unions have achieved in those older industries are transferred to the renewables industry along with an engaged unionised workforce.”

But, she said Prospect’s members will have questions around the detail of Labour’s  plans and how its proposed objectives will be delivered,

She said: “The ultimate objective must be rapid decarbonisation with a Just Transition for workers. It is evident that both public and private sectors will have an important role to play to make this happen, and we stand ready to work with business and government to secure the greener and fairer future we want to see for the UK.”