EXCLUSIVE: The PM will use his Labour conference speech to set out plans for greater public control of energy – as he warned firms and businesses are left shouldering the cost
Andy Burnham will pledge to drive down energy costs with a new publicly-owned Great British Grid to overhaul the “broken energy market”.
In his big speech to Labour conference, the Prime Minister will set out plans for greater public control of energy as he warned firms and businesses are left shouldering the cost of energy prices dictated by markets miles away. GB Grid, a new publicly-owned company, will aim to speed up grid connections for businesses and drive down costs by increasing competition in the market.
It will also make it easier for firms waiting to connect to build infrastructure themselves so they don’t have to wait. It marks the first major step in Mr Burnham’s drive to bring essential services back into public control. He told the Mirror last week that Britain took a “series of wrong turns” in the 1980s when the Tories sold off a string of core utilities.
Britain’s energy grid, which was privatised by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, gets electricity and gas flowing around the country to homes and businesses. But the ageing grid has suffered from decades of underinvestment, with firms criticising slow connections and the massive backlog to join the transmission network as a blocker for investment.
The PM will say: “We have a cost crisis. We all know it. The price of energy is crippling for businesses, and British billpayers pay some of the highest energy costs in Europe. We have an energy system where prices are dictated in markets miles away, while families and businesses here shoulder the costs. Once again, the British public has lost control.
“Within ten years, I want our energy costs to be in line with other nations in Europe. That means we must reform a broken energy market so it serves the public interest.
“I can announce today our plan for Great British Grid, a publicly owned company that will work with the private sector and network companies. It will increase competition to drive down costs and speed up delivery so businesses can connect faster and grow quicker. This is what more public control can do.”
GB Grid will aim to boost the network infrastructure needed to connect homes, businesses and major projects, and speed up the rollout of renewable energy projects stuck in the backlog. The project will sit with GB Energy, the state-backed energy firm set up by Keir Starmer’s government to drive investment in clean power. It will be funded from GB Energy’s existing budgets.
On Monday, Mr Burnham said he would lay out a path for Britain in a “very honest” speech to the Labour Party conference in Liverpool. It is expected to include more details on his promise to reform the crisis-hit social care sector – an issue he has made a personal priority. The PM told an LBC phone-in: “I will lay out a very clear path for the country tomorrow and it won’t do the usual conference thing, perhaps of just going for the big attack lines on the others and the rabbits out of the hat, I will say things of substance.”
The Prime Minister added: “What I am going to do is say here’s how I think we should go forward in the next decade and I will lay it out as clearly as I possibly can. It will require some significant changes but I’m doing it with the best of intentions. I love the country, I love the people of it, I think they deserve better.
“Politics hasn’t served them well for a long time. My generation of politicians I would say hasn’t stepped up fully to the mark and consequently the country isn’t where it should be. But tomorrow is a big day, we can start to put it right, and I’m going to try my best to do that.”
The Prime Minister repeated his claim that the NHS risks collapse without reform of the threadbare social care system and made clear it will form a key part of his address on Tuesday. Asked how he will be funding his plan to reform failing social care, including the possibility of a new separate tax, the PM promised: “I will reveal detail tomorrow.”
He went on: “The thing is, obviously, this has been highly contentious. All parties have used this for point-scoring purposes – dementia tax, death tax, you name it. The problem with that is it puts politics before people and that’s why it’s been unreformed for all these years. I will put forward my ideas.
“If the country says ‘go faster’ because there’s a big consensus behind it, that would be one thing. I don’t think that’s where we will be. We’ll have to debate this. We’ll have to get Baroness [Louise] Casey to set out the detail of how it can be done. I think we will need time if I’m honest. “It will take time I’m afraid to get the detail right – but 2030 is the target date.”
Pressed on whether he wanted reforming social care to be the defining legacy of his premiership, he added: “One of the things for sure – but maybe the main thing. It’s very, very personal to me. I saw my gran go through the care system 25 years ago. I said as a politician then I’m going to fight to make sure my parent’s generation don’t go through what my gran went through.
“But here we are, 25 years later, my dad has gone through. And it’s probably worse today than it was for my gran back then. It’s a colossal failure of politics. How can politics not fix something as basic as the care we give to each other? I’m going to bring forward my plan.
“I don’t know whether people are going to back it. But what I do know is politics has got to get back to putting forward solutions.”