The UK’s Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is set to argue that clean energy offers “the biggest opportunity for job creation for decades” while warning that Reform UK policies would “wreck everything we are doing.”
Speaking at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool this week, he will highlight the opposing political party’s initiatives designed to cut energy bills, expand renewable capacity, and secure workers’ rights.
“What is so exciting about clean energy is that it can answer that call for a different kind of economy … run for working people,” Miliband is expected to say. “It offers the biggest opportunity for job creation for decades. Skilled jobs in proud professions.”
He is expected to announce an expansion of Great British Energy’s scheme to install solar panels on schools and hospitals, as well as a jobs plan aiming to double clean energy employment from 430,000 to 830,000 by 2030.
Miliband may also criticise Reform, arguing its stance amounts to “a war on the working people of Britain.” He is anticipated to claim that Reform’s energy policies “would betray every young person in our country and every person yet to be born.”
Solar industry speaks out
Ed Miliband co-chairs the Solar Taskforce, a joint government-industry body, with Chris Hewett, the Chief Executive of Solar Energy UK.
Hewett echoed concerns about Reform at Solar & Storage Live in Birmingham last week (23-25 September), where he linked fossil fuel interests to opposition campaigns against renewables.
“The electrification of everything, primarily powered by solar and wind, with backup from batteries, is increasingly seen now as the best way to run the energy system,” he told attendees.
Hewett warned that “a growing movement of political parties across the world, including this country,” are promoting anti-renewables rhetoric “backed by oil and gas interests” to further their political power.
He accused Reform figures of threatening investment in solar and storage projects, saying: “Nigel Farage wants to subsidise fracking in Lincolnshire. He wants to send the Welsh working class back down in the coal mines.”
“His sidekick, Richard Tice, has been sending threatening letters to investors in the solar and battery sector saying if Reform were to win power … it would cancel CfD contracts… and the consequence of that would be that Britain remains hooked on expensive oil and gas from petrol states like Russia, like the Middle East, like the US.”
Hewett also addressed his concerns for the US President Donald Trump’s “malicious lies” against renewables – a reference to the administration’s public deprioritisation of clean energy in favour of fossil fuels.
In retaliation against Reform UK’s anti-renewable stance, Hewett argued that public support for renewables remains strong: “The vast majority of Britain still want renewables. They still want it quickly. They want low bills. They want economic security. They want the investment and the jobs.”
“Our role here is to stand firm. It’s to play our part in making the positive and real vision happen.”
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