While Sir Keir Starmer faces the world’s media today at Cop29 in Baku, his Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is on the airwaves fielding questions from the UK press. As the cost-of-living crisis persists, Miliband has been keen to assure listeners that, under Starmer’s army, his clean power by 2030 plan will not drive up household energy bills – but it seems the lefty Labour MP hasn’t managed to quite convince everyone of the veracity of his claim…
Quizzed on ITV’s Good Morning Britain about how much energy bills will first increase before coming down under Labour, Miliband insisted: ‘It is not about bills going up as a result of our plans.’ Going on, the Energy Secretary added:
The truth is that because we don’t control fossil fuel markets, when geopolitical events happen what happens is – for example Russia invading Ukraine – prices go up and not just for imported gas but for North Sea gas as well. What we are doing is transitioning to cheap, clean power that we control.
But Ed’s Conservative counterpart Claire Coutinho was among those left rather unimpressed by the Cabinet Secretary’s response. Labelling his claim as ‘extraordinary’, the shadow energy secretary took to Twitter to fume:
The [National Energy System Operator] report shows Ed’s plans will lead to much higher costs of electricity. It also says gas will price the system 50 per cent of the time or we have to move demand to when the wind blows.
This is total nonsense from Ed Miliband.
Ouch. Coutinho then directed social media users towards a Twitter thread she posted last week in which she laid out the conclusions of the NESO report, noting:
Delivering [Miliband’s] target would require a complete overhaul of planning and pricing, with wildly optimistic assumptions (see below) and even then our energy costs will stay the same. This is not the £300 bill savings that Ed promised – and all the risks are that bills go up.
Good heavens. Rather than offering clarity on the matter, Miliband’s claims seem to have raised even more questions…
'So in six years our bills will go down by £300, how much are they going to have gone up by that point?'@susannareid100 questions Secretary of State for Energy Security Ed Miliband. pic.twitter.com/U0zyifdkel
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) November 12, 2024
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