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Labour u-turn on plans for publicly owned energy company

Labour need to stop misleading Scotland

Keir Starmer has today rolled back Labour’s commitment to a publicly owned energy company, confirming that GB energy will be “be an investment vehicle, not an energy company.”
 
As recently as Monday Scottish Leader Anas Sarwar was promising “GB Energy, a publicly owned generation company headquartered in Scotland.”
 
Lorna Slater, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, said:
“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.”
 
“When Labour abandoned their pledge to invest £28 billion into tackling the climate emergency and building the green industries of the future, they at least retained a commitment to a publicly owned energy company. But now even this appears to have been watered down. Scottish Labour need to stop misleading Scotland and clarify immediately whether they will stand by their pledge to establish a publicly owned energy company in Scotland.”