Scotland would benefit from 100,000 jobs and £8 billion of green investment under Keir Starmer’s plans for a new state-owned energy company, Labour has claimed.
Anas Sarwar, Scottish Labour leader, said that Starmer’s conference pledge for a GB Energy company to invest and control the profits of new green power like offshore windfarms would be a game changer for Scotland.
The plan for a publicly-owned clean generation company to cut energy bills and deliver energy independence was the policy centrepiece of Keir Starmer’s speech to the Labour conference in Liverpool. He said Labour would set up a state-owned green energy company in the first year of office.
Starmer told delegates: “Labour will make sure that the public money we spend building-up British industry, spurs on private investment, stimulates growth … and the British people enjoy the returns.
“Labour won’t make the mistake the Tories made with North Sea oil and gas back in the 1980s. Where they frittered away the wealth from our national resources.”
Anas Sarwar said: “That was a vision from Keir Starmer to transform the UK and Scotland with a government on the side of working people.
“At its heart was a pledge for a publicly owned energy company that will deliver tens of thousands of high skilled, well paid jobs for Scotland, all while bringing down energy bills.”
The Scottish Labour leader repeated accusations that the SNP government had sold off offshore windfarm sites for a fraction of what could be raised and abandoned plans for a publicly-owned Scottish energy company.
Last year Scottish Government and the Crown Estate - which owns the seabed - trumpeted the £700 million raised in an auction which saw 2,700 square miles off the coast of Scotland licensed for 17 giant windfarm projects.
Sarwar said: “The SNP have broken promise after promise - scrapping a plan for a public energy company and selling the profits from our green energy future to multinationals on the cheap.
“At the next general election the choice couldn’t be clearer. Only Labour can boot out the Tories and make Scotland a fairer greener nation.”
Responding the SNP’s Westminster Deputy leader Kirsten Oswald MP said: “Keir Starmer’s remarks not only failed to set out anything new or of substance to Scotland, they also reaffirmed yet again that only with independence will we be able to escape damaging Westminster control and repeated Tory governments for good."
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