Ed Miliband told delegates at UNISON’s Energy conference in Brighton this week that the change to net-zero carbon emissions is “not about putting a green coat of paint on an unfair, unequal economy, but about the fundamental transfer of wealth power and income to working people and their families”.
Outlining Labour’s energy policy if the party gains power at the next election, he asked: “Are we really going to go from a high-carbon unjust, unfair, unequal country to a zero-carbon unjust, unfair, unequal country? No.”
Opening his speech, the shadow secretary of state for climate change and net zero told delegates: “Lots of people talk about how this is an energy bills crisis for consumers, and it is – but it’s also a crisis for you”.
He acknowledged that, while the energy crisis is global in nature, the UK is uniquely badly placed to cope and act and that the energy system in the UK is a “broken free market”.
“The sharp practice of fly-by-night companies has to end.” he said, “The whole system has got to change. We need to replace this broken system with an energy system run in the public interest.
“It’s got to be public interest not private gain that drives the way that the system is run. It’s not about ideology, it’s about value for money and sensible, pragmatic choices.”
He told delegates that he had recently visited the largest on-shore wind farm in the UK, in Wales, which is 100% public owned – by the Swedish government.
“We do have public ownership of parts of our energy system, it’s just foreign public ownership. If it’s good enough for the Swedes, why isn’t it good enough for Britain?”
And Mr Miliband took aim at the Conservative government saying, “The Tories mouth the words but don’t deliver.
“I think it’s ideology not incompetence that stops them delivering [for public services].” Asking a simple question, “do you judge your country based on the balance sheets of BP or Shell or do you judge it on the household bills of working families?”
He went on to outline how there is an opportunity in the crisis with hundreds of thousands of jobs available, and the opportunity to redesign the energy system with billions of pounds of investment over the next 10 years to make it happen. “But this is only going to work if we work with the trade unions to make it happen.”
Finishing his speech he compared the challenge faced by the 1945 Labour government, saying that “a country ravaged by war and massively in debt, what they could have done was lower their sights but they raised them and created the national health service.
“And we have to raise our ambitions not lower our ambitions. Yes, there’s a cost of living crisis, yes there is a climate crisis, but we’ve got to think big, not small.”