Energy UK conference 2024: keynote speech by Ed Miliband
Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, speaks at the Energy UK annual conference.
Thank you, Emma [Pinchbeck] for that incredibly kind introduction and for your thought leadership and public advocacy.
And thank you to Energy UK for hosting this important conference.
I wanted first to thank all of the companies gathered here for the work you do for our country.
[political content removed] it is an absolute privilege for me to have the chance to work with you in government.
Now unusually for a cabinet minister, as you know, I’m in a job I’ve done before.
It’s a rare privilege to go back to a job you first did 16 years ago and seek to learn from experience and maybe even do it better.
I would recommend it if you’re thinking about it.
The more serious reason for mentioning my previous role is back in 2008, a few months into my role, I gave a speech about the strategic framework that would underpin our approach. That’s what I want to do again today 16 years on, including specifically by reflecting on what has changed since then to learn lessons for the future.
In my experience, this strategic framework really matters for government because it sets out the direction of travel providing a clear routemap for business and a plan for the country.
First, this is my argument today, back in 2008, debates were shaped by the energy trilemma – the trade-offs between affordability, security and sustainability.
The trilemma helped promote the idea that while fossil fuels might not offer sustainability, they did offer security and affordability to the country.
Our mission today is shaped by the reality that, for Britain, this old paradigm has disintegrated.
The experience of the last 2 and a half years has shown us that fossil fuels simply cannot provide us with the security, or indeed the affordability, we need – quite the opposite.
Second part of my case is that the trilemma has been replaced by a clean energy imperative: the drive to clean energy is right not just on grounds of climate, which we all knew back then, but also energy security and affordability.
As the Climate Change Committee puts it very well, “British-based renewable energy is the cheapest and fastest way to reduce vulnerability to volatile global fossil fuel markets.”
The lesson for this government is that we must build a new era of greater energy independence on the foundation of clean energy.
Third part of my remarks is about proceeding from that is strategic framework as a government, the context is that, compared to 2008, it is much clearer how enormous the challenge of the energy transition is, but it’s also clearer the opportunities that there are for job creation and growth.
So I will come, at the end, to reflect on our approach for the government to the task ahead and how we can work with business to meet it.
First part of my remarks is with what Britain has been through in the last 2 and a half years:
The worst cost of living crisis in a generation, driven by the unprecedented energy shock that followed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
It has been a disaster for business, family finances, the economy and the public finances – and it still casts a long shadow.
Typical energy bills nearly doubled in the space of a year.
Millions struggled with fuel poverty and many still face enormous debts.
Inflation soared and growth sputtered.
And the government was forced to spend the eye watering sum of £94 billion to support households with the cost of living, almost as much as our defence budget over the entire period.
And the crisis isn’t over.
Bills will rise again next month due to the latest gyrations of global gas prices.
Now it’s our view as a government that no country should experience a crisis of the scale, the one we have been through, with such devastating effects, and simply carry on as it did before.
We must learn the lessons.
And the central lesson of the crisis for Britain is that we paid a heavy price because of our exposure to fossil fuels.
Yes Britain has made progress on the rollout of renewables, but we still depend on gas to generate more than a third of our electricity and to heat more than four out of five of our homes.
The decline of North Sea production since the 2000s now means more than half of that gas comes from abroad.
But what matters even more, and this is the critical point, is that whether the gas comes from the North Sea or is imported, it is sold at the same price on the international market.
Britain is a price-taker not a price-maker.
So every therm of gas we bought, wherever it came from, shot up in price in response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
This is the fundamental point not understood in policy debates.
And so as long as we are dependent on fossil fuels, no matter where they come from, we will be stuck on the rollercoaster of volatile international markets.
We simply won’t have control over our energy bills and any politician that pretends we will is trying to fool you, because these markets are in the grip of dictators and petrostates.
What’s more, we know that from Russia’s war in Ukraine to conflict in the Middle East, we live in an age of heightened geopolitical risk.
So Britain remains exposed to another surge in prices and indeed the Office for Budget Responsibility has warned about this and the potential cost to billpayers and taxpayers.
Dependence on fossil fuels leaves us deeply vulnerable as a country.
The government’s view is we cannot go on like this.
The second part of my case is that in place of the trilemma, there is now a clean energy imperative: the answers to security, and affordability, as well as sustainability, all now point in the direction of investing in clean energy at speed and scale.
The sustainability case is clear because we know it is the use of fossil fuels that is driving the climate crisis.
But the security case too is stark—and I think has been too often underplayed.
It has been put well by my Irish counterpart Eamon Ryan who I met last week, who rightly says: “No one has ever weaponised access to the sun or the wind.”
Homegrown clean energy from renewables and nuclear offers us a security that fossil fuels simply cannot provide.
The energy is produced here, consumed here and is not subject to the same volatility of international markets.
And it is on affordability that the most transformative development of recent years has taken place: the dramatic drop in the price of renewables.
This is a genuinely transformative change since I was Energy Secretary in the 2000s. Since 2015 alone, despite recent global cost pressures, the price of both onshore wind and solar has still fallen by more than a third.
The price of offshore wind has halved.
And the price of batteries has fallen by more than two-thirds.
This means, on the basis of the prices in our recent auction, renewables are the cheapest form of power to build and operate. I could not have said that back in 2008.
And the price of fixed offshore wind in the auction was around 5 to 7 times lower than the price of electricity, driven by the price of gas, at the peak of the energy crisis.
Cheap, clean renewables offer us price stability that fossil fuels simply cannot provide.
That means that if we are serious about energy security, family security, economic security and national security, we need the greater energy independence that only clean energy can give us.
Of course, there will be a transition that will take time, and oil and gas, including from the North Sea, will continue to play an important role in our economy for decades to come.
This is the crucial point, what our whole mandate is about for clean power by 2030…
But the lesson I draw is that the faster we go, the more secure we become.
Every wind turbine we put up, every solar panel we install, every piece of grid we construct helps protect families from future energy shocks.
This is an argument that we need to have as a country – what Emma said is right – because the converse is also true.
Every wind turbine we block, every solar farm we reject, every piece of grid we fail to build makes us less secure and more exposed.
Previous governments have ducked and dithered and delayed these difficult decisions, and here is the thing: it is the poorest in our society who have paid the price.
My message today is we will take on the blockers, the delayers, the obstructionists, because the clean energy sprint is the economic justice, energy security and national security fight of our time.
And that’s why, and I couldn’t have said this in 2008, one of the Prime Minister’s 5 driving missions is to make Britain a clean energy superpower:
Delivering clean power by 2030. And accelerating to net zero across the economy.
Driving to homegrown clean energy not just in the power sector but when it comes to how we heat our homes, fuel our transport and power our industry.
And I just want to say to this audience – it’s really important that the mission driven government approach means that this is a whole of government mission, led from the top by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor and indeed championed by the Foreign Secretary, who is giving a speech later on today about his commitment to tackling the climate crisis.
This then is the strategic paradigm for policy under this government.
The good news is that the clean energy imperative that I described, in particular the fall in the costs of renewables, has accelerated how quickly we can make the transition compared to what we imagined back in 2008.
It is important to say this: the world has consistently outperformed projections for the global deployment of renewables, an illustration of our ability – time and time again – to do more than we think is possible, mission impossible.
But it’s also true to say that much else that we have learnt since then suggests the challenge is greater.
Of course, we knew in 2008 that we faced the task of transforming our economy more profoundly than at any time in more than 200 years.
But the task is now more urgent, and the stakes higher.
Climate change is no longer a future threat but a present-day reality.
And the world is way off track from where we need to be to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees.
Indeed the prospects are truly frightening.
And for Britain of course, in 2008 we were aiming for an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050. That was one of the changes that I made when I became Secretary of State.
Since 2019, it’s been net zero.
At the same time it’s clearer the challenges are greater, so the opportunities are more clearly greater too.
This is a chance to create hundreds of thousands of good jobs and drive investment into all parts of the UK.
That is why our clean energy mission is at the heart of our growth mission.
And we have huge strengths to draw on.
Our status as an island nation, with our unrivalled potential for offshore wind.
The unique geology of the North Sea, which has capacity to store 200 years of our carbon emissions.
The rooftops of our great towns, villages and cities to harness the sun.
Britain’s considerable nuclear expertise and our skilled workforce who have a huge role to play in powering our clean energy future, with a new generation of nuclear, such as Sizewell C and SMRs.
And significant opportunities in hydrogen, tidal and other technologies.
These are exciting possibilities.
With Britain’s dynamic businesses, world-leading universities, and our skilled scientists, technicians and engineers.
I genuinely say we should be incredibly optimistic about what we can do together for our country.
This is much more at the centre of our economic strategy than it was then.
We need to face facts, however.
Britain is not on course to meet the challenges or maximise the opportunities.
The Climate Change Committee progress report published 2 weeks after we came to office said we were way off track to meet our 2030 Nationally Determined Contribution: with just one-third of the emissions reductions required backed by credible plans.
And I’m afraid, this is something we need to work on together, Britain has underdelivered on promises of clean energy jobs.
Germany has almost twice as many renewable jobs per capita as Britain.
Sweden almost 3 times as many.
Denmark almost 4 times as many.
As other countries race ahead to lead in the industries of the future, Britain must not be left behind.
This government was elected to both rise to the challenges more effectively and seize the opportunities more effectively too.
And that’s what I want to focus on in the last part of my remarks.
And I want to say something about how the role of government can contribute: as architect of the clean energy system, as the driver of the dynamism and as the guarantor of fairness in the transition.
First, on government as architect, 5 days into my job, I appointed Chris Stark, formerly of the Climate Change Committee, to head up 2030 Mission Control in my department.
Mission Control is about a new way of working, bringing together the relevant players across government and industry to plan and deliver.
The task I have given Chris is to set out a plan for 2030 clean power, at least cost to billpayers and taxpayers, maximising the economic opportunities for Britain.
I genuinely believe the absence of a plan is one of the reasons for our inheritance and why our country has been left so exposed.
Of course, the energy transition is fraught with uncertainty but unless there is a line of sight for businesses and investors, you just won’t have the confidence to invest the hundreds of billions that Emma talked about in her speech.
So as a first step, Chris and I have asked the Electricity System Operator, the NESO, to provide advice on the pathway to 2030 clean power, including where infrastructure should be sited, to maximise speed and minimise costs.
Their expert advice will inform our 2030 plan.
Second, having a plan is merely the first step because the next test is whether you are willing to make the decisions to meet it.
For too long, investment in clean energy has been held back by inertia across the board: on planning, grid, supply chains and skills—and because of the failures of government.
I guess I should say here, to some businesses in the room, on the basis of past experience, the state as driver of dynamism might sound like an oxymoron.
You might indeed laugh.
We intend to try and shatter your disillusion.
In 2 months or so, we’ve already lifted the onshore wind ban.
Consented nearly 2GW of nationally significant solar.
And delivered the most successful renewables auction in British history.
I want to give you another concrete example of mission-driven government in action. I want you to think of your frustrations.
For 15 years, offshore wind has been plagued by a long-running dispute over defence radar.
A week before the AR6 auction, I was warned that unless we resolved the funding of this radar it could drive up auction prices, leading to higher costs for consumers.
Working with the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence we resolved the auction issue and reassured developers.
That was mission drive government in action. That was us armed with the Prime Minister’s commitment and mission to work with the rest of government.
We won’t always get it right but this a sign of how we intend to proceed.
This is a government in a hurry to deliver our mandate from the British people.
Third, if the transition is to succeed, government must act as a guarantor of fairness.
As somebody who believes this country suffers from deep injustice, I am determined that we do not go from an unequal, unfair, high carbon Britain to an unequal, unfair clean energy Britain.
We must, in this transition, tackle fuel poverty, create good jobs, clean up our air, improve access to nature and quality of life.
And I passionately believe we can.
Our Warm Homes Plan will fund energy efficiency and clean heating to upgrade homes and cut fuel poverty.
Great British Energy’s Local Power Plan will deliver the biggest expansion of support for community-owned energy in British history and ensure benefits flow directly to local communities, part of our commitment that where communities host clean energy infrastructure, they should benefit from it.
We will also stand up for billpayers by reforming Ofgem to make it a strong consumer champion.
And this winter we are committed to working with suppliers, and across government to help those who are vulnerable.
And this role for government, in guaranteeing fairness, applies as much to workers.
I know from my own constituency, a former mining community, that for decades the demand for good jobs has not sufficiently been met.
We have the greatest opportunity in a generation to meet this demand and I am determined we will.
Great British Energy will work with business to invest in frontier technologies to help us lead as a country.
Our National Wealth Fund will strengthen our supply chains.
The British Jobs Bonus will help reward those who invest in our industrial heartlands and coastal communities.
And we are determined to ensure a fair transition for every industry, including our North Sea communities.
Our North Sea workers have huge talents which can continue to serve us in oil and gas as well as industries like CCUS, renewables and hydrogen.
And we need your help to undertake this transition in the right way.
Understanding your responsibility to build the supply chains for new industries in Britain because we do care where things are made.
Embracing the voice of workers and a role for trade unions as fossil fuel industries have traditionally done.
And acting together with us to ensure no worker, no community is left behind.
People will judge us on whether this transition delivers fairness, and rightly so.
To sum up our approach working with you: government as architect, driver of dynamism and guarantor of fairness, working in the closest partnership with business to make this transition a success.
Let me end my remarks where I began.
It’s an absolutely enormous privilege to be working with business and indeed civil society on the most important challenges facing our country and our world.
I confess I am at one and the same time energised by the task and also conscious of the deep responsibility it carries.
We know the stakes of action versus inaction.
We know we can only deliver energy security, lower bills and good jobs for today’s generations if we become a clean energy superpower.
And we can only deliver climate security for future generations, including Emma’s daughter, by showing global climate leadership, built on the power of our example. That is the summary of what this government is setting about doing.
And when the Prime Minister talks about mission-driven government, this is what he means.
The people in this room are what he means.
Working together with government for:
Energy independence.
Lower bills.
Good jobs.
And a healthy environment we can pass on to future generations.
I have absolute faith that together we can do great things for our country and our world.
I am still in politics because of how much I care about this fight.
And I look forward to working with you all in the months and years ahead.