Labour pledges to create publicly owned energy company to ‘cut bills and create jobs’
Sir Keir Starmer has announced that a Labour government will create Great British Energy – a new, publicly owned company that will generate renewable sources “to cut bills, create jobs and deliver energy independence”.
The role of GB Energy will be to provide additional capacity alongside the private sector, to establish the UK as a clean energy superpower and guarantee long term energy security, the Labour leader said.
Many European, Asian, and American countries have public generating companies, like EDF in France.
Starmer delivers keynote speech – live updates
Delivering a keynote speech at the party conference in Liverpool, Sir Keir said the largest onshore wind farm in Wales is owned by Sweden, so “energy bills in Swansea are paying for schools and hospitals in Stockholm”.
He added: “The Chinese Communist Party has a stake in our nuclear industry. And five million people in Britain pay their bills to an energy company owned by France.
“Labour will set up Great British Energy within the first year of a Labour government. A new company that takes advantage of the opportunities in clean British power, because it’s right for jobs, because it’s right for growth, because it’s right for energy independence.”
Sir Keir Starmer kisses his wife Victoria after making his keynote address
Britain’s own EDF
A Labour Party source told Sky News the hope is that GB Energy will “eventually be an EDF”.
The announcement builds on Labour’s commitment to make the UK a clean energy superpower by 2030 and create a National Wealth Fund to invest in British industry.
Sir Keir said Labour “will make sure that the public money we spend building-up British industry, spurs on private investment, stimulates growth… and the British people enjoy the returns”.
He added: “Labour won’t make the mistake the Tories made with North Sea oil and gas back in the 1980s, where they frittered away the wealth from our national resources.
“The road to net-zero is no longer one of stern, austere, self-denial. It’s at the heart of modern, 21st century aspiration. Technology has turned everything on its head.”
Tories ‘have ripped out foundations of Britain’
The speech came after days of market uncertainty driven by Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget – something Sir Keir said the public should “not forgive and not forget”.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of crashing the pound and losing control of the economy “to give tax cuts to the rich”.
“They used to lecture us about fixing the roof when the sun was shining,” he said.
“But take a look around Britain, they haven’t just failed to fix the roof, they’ve ripped out the foundations, smashed through the windows, and now they’ve blown the doors off for good measure.”
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‘Tories have smashed windows and blown doors off’
Homes, Brexit, and Blair
In another policy announcement, Sir Keir said Labour wants to increase homeownership and will set a target of 70%, offering a new mortgage guarantee for first-time buyers to help more people get onto the housing ladder.
He also promised to make Brexit “work” – saying that is something voters won’t get from the Tories or SNP.
His condemnation of the SNP was well-received by the audience.
“We can’t work with them, we won’t work with them, no deal under any circumstances,” he said.
Sir Keir finished his speech by echoing former leader and prime minister Tony Blair.
He said Labour is “the party of the centre ground – once again the political wing of the British people”.
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How was the speech received?
Sir Keir won no fewer than 10 standing ovations during his confident and assured 50-minute speech.
Deputy leader Angela Rayner told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby the speech showed how passionate he is, after suggestions from some quarters that he is boring and lacking in personality.
Ms Rayner was a supporter of former leader Jeremy Corbyn and has been generally seen as more to the left of the party than Sir Keir.
“I think he’s exactly what we need in this country at the moment, someone who’s got very clear ideas, very good ethics,” she said.
Starmer lays on patriotism thick in keynote speech
For anyone in doubt that Labour wants to be seen as a patriotic party under Sir Keir Starmer, the signs are not very subtle.
It started with kicking off the conference with the national anthem.
And it has culminated in Sir Keir giving his leader’s speech surrounded by British flags.
And the big announcement? Establishing a new state energy company called Great British Energy.
It doesn’t get much more patriotic than that.
Trade unions also praised the speech, with Frances O’Grady of the TUC calling it “inspirational” and UNSION saying a Labour government “can’t come soon enough”.
The speech was less well received by the SNP, who accused Labour of “turning into the Tories”.
The Conservatives also hit back, saying there was nothing new in the speech “no matter how much he tries to emulate Tony Blair”.
The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.
Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.
We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.
It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.
Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.
We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.
David Lammy and Norway’s Foreign Minister Barth Eide view the melting Blomstrandbreen glacier. Pic: PA
The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.
“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”
In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.
The foreign secretary visiting SvalSat, a satellite ground station which monitors climate in Svalbard. Pic: PA
Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.
“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.
But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.
Norwegian observers are concerned about the Russian leader – and Trump being ‘too soft’ on him. Pic: AP
Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”
Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.
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In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.
There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.
“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”
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This is also about distracting Russia, drawing away resources that could have been used in the war in Ukraine and deterring it in the future.
Because the more Arctic opens up, the more this once pristine wilderness is becoming the arena of national rivalry and potentially conflict.
World
‘What did they do to be burned and bombed?’: Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment
A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.
Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing
The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.
“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.
He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.
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Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.
Children are among the bulk of the casualties in Gaza
“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.
“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.
“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”
Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.
They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.
Dr Victoria Rose is a British surgeon working in southern Gaza’s last remaining hospital
Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.
“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.
“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”
One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.
Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.
“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”
Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”
Hatem Senior
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The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.
He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.
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Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”
Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.
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