LABOUR’S plans for a “home-grown energy company” have unravelled spectacularly after Keir Starmer was forced to admit Great British Energy was “not an energy company”.
The SNP have branded the flagship pledge a “sham” after Starmer dramatically scaled back Labour’s plans during a visit to Scotland on Friday.
Speaking to BBC Good Morning Scotland, Starmer admitted the publicly-owned company would be an “investment vehicle” to pump money into the private sector.
He said: “It’d be an investment vehicle, not an energy company, it’s an investment vehicle in the energy of the future.
“The money going into it would be public money but used to trigger private investment alongside it.”
The Labour leader said he expected it to be profitable and that it would create jobs.
Challenged on whether Labour’s plans to issue no new oil and gas licences and extend the windfall tax on energy giants could lead to job losses, Starmer (above) said: “No, I do reject that analysis, in fact I’m absolutely convinced that the transition can bring more jobs to Scotland and those will last for decades.”
He insisted that oil and gas would “be part of the mix for decades to come” and that would not be “turning off the pipes”.
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said: “This interview showed Keir Starmer is utterly clueless about the Scottish energy industry and his only Scottish policy has completely unravelled.
"His damaging plans for so-called ‘GB Energy’ are a sham.
"Starmer has been forced to admit it isn’t an energy company, it won't produce or sell energy – and it will rely on the same private investment that his policies are putting at risk.”
Flynn (below), who is the SNP candidate in Aberdeen South, said that industry experts had predicted Labour’s plans could “destroy 100,000 Scottish jobs and deter billions of pounds in investment”.
The Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce is among industry leaders who have warned against Labour’s plans to increase the windfall tax on energy firms – who posted record profits due to the war in Ukraine.
Earlier this year, the body said Labour’s plans to hike the tax up to 78% and extend it until 2029 would result in “redundancies on a scale not seen in this country since the pit closures of the 1980s”.
Flynn added: “It’s no wonder Starmer has given up campaigning in the north east of Scotland when he knows his plans are so damaging and unpopular.”
Green co-leader Lorna Slater added: “After today’s U-turn from Keir Starmer it’s hard to tell who has more disregard for – the people of Scotland or his colleagues in Scottish Labour.
“Earlier this week, Anas Sarwar was promising us that GB Energy would be a publicly owned company that would generate and sell renewable energy – like the publicly owned energy companies that are common throughout Europe – and would create 70,000 jobs in Scotland.
“But Keir Starmer has now torpedoed these plans, once again confirming Scottish Labour’s irrelevance to Labour decision-making in London.”
Last June, Starmer 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.
