FIRST Minister John Swinney expressed confusion over Keir Starmer’s Great British Energy plans as he warned Labour’s proposals will lead to a “significant” loss of jobs in the north east of Scotland.
The Labour leader appeared to dramatically scale back plans for a “home-grown energy company” in Scotland as he admitted it would only be an “investment vehicle” to pump money into the private sector.
When asked about Starmer’s backtracking in Glasgow on Friday, Swinney said he did not want to be part of a Labour plan he felt would spark job losses in the oil and gas sector.
The First Minister said: “Having listened to what’s been said this morning, I don’t have certainty over what this proposal [GB Energy] involves.
“Keir Starmer said on the radio it wasn’t actually going to be an energy company but it’s going to be an investment vehicle. Well, we have lots of them already.
“In my first week as First Minister we delivered investments in renewable energy in Scotland.
“So I’m all for energy investment but I do put out a cautionary word that a lot of what I hear of Labour’s energy plans will result in a significant loss of employment in the north east of Scotland in the oil and gas sector and I don’t want to be part of that.”
Last June, Starmer (above) delivered a speech in Edinburgh in which he hailed plans for “a new home-grown energy company”.
He compared Labour’s proposed GB Energy company with Denmark’s Ørsted and Vattenfall in Sweden, both of which produce and sell energy.
The SNP said the interview Starmer gave on BBC’s Good Morning Scotland showed him up as “utterly clueless” about Scotland’s energy sector.
Starmer – who was campaigning in Greenock on Friday morning with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar - said he expected GB Energy to be profitable and that it would create jobs.
He also insisted oil and gas would “be part of the mix for decades to come” and that would not be “turning off of the pipes”.
When asked whether he was reassured by Starmer’s pledge GB Energy would “turn the page” on the cost of living crisis, Swinney added: “I’m all for making progress on energy security and when I set out those statistics on the fact we’ve gone from essentially generating 20 per cent of our net electricity consumption from renewables to the equivalent of 113% over the course of the years in which the SNP has been in office, I think that’s a pretty formidable contribution to energy security.
“Of course, Scotland’s contribution to renewable energy is not over yet. We’ve got enormous potential, that’s why big investments have happened in the north of Scotland in offshore renewables and a variety of other technologies.”
Labour would fund GB Energy through a windfall tax on oil and gas firms, which they said would raise £8.3 billion over the next five years.
