Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has today reiterated that low carbon infrastructure and clean technologies would provide one of the central pillars of a Labour government’s economic strategy, vowing that the party “will ensure we become world leaders in decarbonising our economy”. In his keynote speech to the Party’s annual conference in Brighton this morning, McDonnell said the UK needed to respond to the environmental “wake up call” provided by extreme weather and step up investment in clean technologies. “Labour will ensure we become world leaders in decarbonising our economy. With a publicly owned energy supply based on alternative energy sources.” He added that “absolutely commit” to building the Swansea Tidal Lagoon project, accusing the government of having “dithered and delayed”. The commitment to nationalise energy – which followed a BBC interview this morning where McDonnell suggested the valuations for any nationalised industries would be “determined by Parliament” – appeared to go further than the manifesto itself, which proposed “legislating to permit publicly owned local companies to purchase the regional grid infrastructure, and to ensure that national and regional grid infrastructure is brought into public ownership over time”, and supporting the introduction of new regional “publicly owned, locally accountable energy companies and co-operatives to rival existing private energy suppliers”.
Business Green 25th Sept 2017 read more »
