Election 2017 - Labour's ownership plans are the radical shift in energy policy

Not for the first time, energy policy has received very little attention in this election campaign. In Scotland, key elements are reserved so you might expect a bit more attention to be paid to it, rather than debate devolved issues that MPs have no real say over.

The Tories are not proposing any major changes to their current energy policy, other than over energy prices. The radical change is in Labour's manifesto, which attacks privatisation and fuel poverty, based on three key principles:

• To ensure security of energy supply and ‘keep the lights on’.
• To ensure energy costs are affordable for consumers and businesses.
• To ensure we meet our climate change targets and transition to a low-carbon economy. 

None of these are particularly controversial; the radical meat comes later in the manifesto.

Labour would introduce an immediate emergency price cap to ensure that the average dual-fuel household energy bill remains below £1,000 per year. The SNP manifesto also has a price cap commitment. This was 1970's socialism according to the Daily Mail, until the Tories started to use similar language. In practice the Tory manifesto commitment has been diluted to a targeted cap. So much so that the industry now welcomes it.

The big Labour idea is to take energy back into public ownership to deliver renewable energy, affordability for consumers, and democratic control. This will be done in stages, starting with the energy supply networks license conditions. Then by creating locally accountable energy companies and finally purchasing regional and national grids. As Stephen Hall, from Leeds University notes, this is not quite as revolutionary as it appears. This is happening in the US and Germany, often badged as municipalisation. It is a long way short of command and control nationalisation.

To help tackle other aspects of fuel poverty, Labour will insulate four million homes to help those who suffer in cold homes each winter. This will cut emissions, improve health, save on bills and reduce winter deaths. There should be Barnett consequentials for Scotland from this. Homeowners will be offered interest- free loans to improve their property and Landlord regulations will be changed in England. Labour is committed to similar measures in Scotland. As the Energy Saving Trust says:

"There’s no sugar coating it. From a home energy point of view the Labour manifesto is much more encouraging than the Conservative one."

Labour will ban fracking because it would lock us into an energy infrastructure based on fossil fuels, long after the point in 2030 when the Committee on Climate Change says gas in the UK must sharply decline. Putting to one side the safety and environmental issues, we simply don’t need another dirty fossil fuel. The Tories are proposing incentives in England to promote fracking and the SNP are consulting over the current moratorium in Scotland.

Labour views emerging technologies such as carbon capture and storage as the way to help to smooth the transition to cleaner fuels and to protect existing jobs as part of the future energy mix. However, the manifesto is silent on the role of gas plants in delivering flexible generation. The current capacity market has not provided an incentive to build new plants; instead it has delivered the dirtiest possible coal and diesel generation.

The commitments to renewable energy projects, including tidal lagoons, are viewed as part of Labour’s industrial strategy, to create manufacturing and energy jobs, as well as contributing to climate- change commitments. With backing from a Labour government, these sectors can secure crucial shares of global export markets.

The Liberal-Democrats would also reverse Tory cuts to support for wind farms and solar PV. They also support energy efficiency measures. However, their support for community energy and new entrants into energy retail are firmly wedded to market solutions.

Under a Labour government nuclear will continue to be part of the UK energy supply, which puts them at odds with the SNP. Labour will also seek to retain access to Euratom, to allow continued trade of fissile material, with access and collaboration over research. As part of the Brexit negotiations, Labour will prioritise maintaining access to the internal energy market. This is also important to the SNP’s independence plans, which rely on access to energy systems outwith Scotland.

The SNP energy policy is currently the subject of a consultation and I have set out the UNISON response to that consultation here. In the event of a hung parliament, outwith the Tories, most parties could support the ambition in the paper and it is fair to say that Scotland has led the way on cleaner energy. Its weakness is the shortage of specific actions and milestones, a criticism shared by the renewables industry.

Most party manifestos express their support for renewable energy and energy efficiency. The radical shift in this election is the commitment to new ownership models in the Labour manifesto. The election of Labour government this week would mean big changes for the sector.


For a full comparison of the party manifestos on energy and climate change, see the Carbon Brief's helpful chart.


Cross posted on Utilities Scotland.