English Labour's promise - to short-change Scotland

Published by the Edinburgh Evening News, February 27, 2024. They edited out the last two lines.

Ian Murray claims English Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan (GPP), which has been stripped of its £28 billion in another one of Keir Starmer’s many policy reversals, will generate revenue to invest in Scotland’s renewables sector. But all that remains of the GPP is a promised 3% increase in windfall taxes on oil companies, from 75% to 78%. The Scottish Government rightly objected to Labour’s plan to spend this money to fund expensive and dangerous nuclear power plants in England, not invest in the Scottish renewables sector. 

Because energy policy is reserved to Westminster, UK consumers pay some of the highest electricity prices in Europe, and Scots pay the most, thanks to the privatised National Grid that perversely charges Scottish generators the highest connection rates. Scottish generators will be forced to pay £465 million in transmission charges by 2026 while those in England and Wales will get a £30 million subsidy.

Energy privatisation has been a gigantic flop. Privatising a basic public utility that people rely upon is never a good idea. That’s because private companies focus on profit maximisation and rewarding shareholders, not on providing a cost-effective public service. 

But English Labour has abandoned its pledge to bring energy, rail, mail and water (in England) back into public ownership. Its proposed Great British Energy Company is a sham. It will be an energy generator, not a supplier. The energy - mostly Scottish - will still be sold to us by private companies, so nothing will change.  

English Labour’s allergy to public spending and investment is why it offers no alternative to the Tories. The only change a Westminster Labour government offers Scotland is short-change.

Scotland isn’t warped – the union is.