The government’s new state-owned energy company, GB Energy, will be based in Aberdeen in Scotland, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has said.
The announcement came during Starmer’s speech to the Labour Party annual conference in Liverpool yesterday, where he also hailed his government’s progress on developing renewable energy.
Green energy ‘mission’
Starmer said the “publicly-owned national champion, the vehicle that will drive forward our mission on clean energy” had to be based in Aberdeen, the ‘Granite City’, as it “belonged in Scotland”. He added that the choice was a consequence of the “talent and skills” of the city’s workers.
The UK’s energy system must be “reformed”, Starmer argued, so that it can have “more control over its security”. Clean energy would be “harnessed for national renewal”, while he also promised new homes, towns, hospitals and roads. He also emphasised that expanding capacity on energy and other infrastructure would require compromise from some:
"If we want justice to be served, some communities must live close to new prisons. If we want cheaper electricity, we need new pylons overground, otherwise the burden on taxpayers is too much."
Immigration and skills
Among the other promises in Starmer’s speech was a pledge to “get our skills system right” while also reducing net immigration. He said his government would “give businesses more flexibility to adapt to real training needs” by introducing “foundation apprenticeships” and “rebalance[ing] funding in our training system back to young people”.
He added, however that he had “never thought we should be relaxed about some sectors importing labour when there are millions of young people, ambitious and highly talented, who are desperate to work and contribute to their community”.
“Trust me, there are plenty of examples of apprenticeship starting to go down at the very same time that visa applications for the same skills are going up, and so we will get tough on this.”
Economy
Starmer noted that “stabilising our economy is the first step” in his government’s plans for broader change. It is, he said, “the only way we keep prices low, cut NHS waiting lists and secure the [pension] triple lock so that every pensioner in this country – every pensioner – will be better off with Labour”.
“If we want to be serious about levelling up, then we must be proud to be the party of wealth creation. Unashamed to partner with the private sector.”
It comes following a speech by chancellor Rachel Reeves the day previously, where she promised that the government would “restore investment as a share of GDP to the level it was under the last Labour government”.
Reeves addressed global trade tensions in that speech, where she said the UK needed to be able to “make and sell here in Britain, so we are less exposed to global shocks”, arguing that “globalisation as we once knew it is dead”.
“Disruption to supply chains that span the globe has revealed the perils of prizing only the fastest and the cheapest.
“And our ability to make the things essential to our national security has been depleted.”
