Lord Blunkett: Net zero push risks making Labour toxic to voters

Telegraph

04-05-2025

Labour's net zero push risks making the party 'electorally toxic', Lord Blunkett has said.
The Labour peer and former home secretary urged Sir Keir Starmer to take a more flexible approach towards green targets to save businesses and consumers money.
It comes days after Sir Tony Blair said net zero policies were ' doomed to fail ' and people were being asked to make financial sacrifices for a 'minimal' impact on global emissions.
A spokesman for Sir Tony later insisted he believed Sir Keir's approach was 'the right one' but the intervention has opened a debate in the party about its green policies.
Labour suffered heavy losses at last week's local elections to Reform UK, which said it would tear up pledges to achieve clean power by 2030 and net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Lord Blunkett served in Sir Tony's cabinet for eight years and said the former prime minister's intervention, the election results and the recent power outage in Portugal and Spain, must focus minds in No 10.
The peer denounced Nigel Farage's pledge to abandon net zero altogether as 'insane' as Reform prepares to block its new councils from installing solar farms or pylons.
But he went on to argue that green policies introduced by successive governments – all of which have been backed by Labour – have made both industry and households poorer.
Lord Blunkett said: 'In years to come we will need to have protected ourselves from the vagaries of those world events which lead to fluctuations in both the availability and price of oil and gas, never mind the impact on the environment.
'But the politics of this are genuinely tricky. So far, the moves that have been made – and yes, we as a country have made substantial moves towards net zero – have been at a heavy cost to both industry and domestic users.
'Getting energy prices down quickly is a political imperative if the necessary changes aren't to become electorally toxic.'
A reliance on green energy was blamed for mass blackouts across the Iberian peninsula that hit millions of people in what is believed to be Europe's biggest power cut.
Lord Blunkett called the outage 'a timely reminder of just how dependent we are on electricity supply, and the devastation that can be caused when the lights go out, the trains stop, and charging points fail'.
He went on to compare the power cut to Storm Arwen, which hit Scotland and northern England in 2021 and left around 100,000 families without power.
'Those reliant almost entirely on electricity couldn't heat their homes, even where they had ground or heat pumps, couldn't take a warm shower, nor could they use their electric oven, charge their car or connect to the Internet.
'On that occasion it was a natural occurrence,' he said. 'However, it did remind us – as the Blair Institute paper was intended to – that reliance on only one source of energy is not only politically dangerous but practically unwise.'
Lord Blunkett said it was vital for Sir Keir and Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, to decouple the price of electricity from the global gas market and to overhaul Ofgem, the regulator.
'It is absolutely true that we can accelerate growth by investment in renewables and away from dependence on carbon fuels, but it's also true that the price of energy for our industrial base is a major drag on growth and on our competitiveness. We have to square that circle.'
The Blairite grandee concluded that Sir Keir had to present environmentally friendly policies to voters as 'a promise not a punishment' if he was to sustain public support for net zero.
'Yes, we need targets, we need the ambition and momentum set by deadlines,' Lord Blunkett said.
'But we need the flexibility to ensure that the drive for a cleaner, pleasanter and safer planet is not undermined by the political victories of those who would reverse all that has been achieved so far.
'In a democracy, you have to persuade, not command, people to contribute in their own lives to bringing about change.
'You must ensure that what you're offering is a promise not a punishment, and, above all, you have to listen to them. That is the lesson of the last few weeks.'
Labour MPs including Jo White, the chairman of the Red Wall Group of backbenchers, have questioned No 10's messaging on green energy in the wake of the election results.
Mr Farage put a vow to 'reindustrialise' Britain at the heart of his pitch to voters in the north of England, and Reform went on to gain full control of Durham and Lincolnshire councils.
On Sunday, Khalid Mahmood, a former Labour frontbencher, said his party had 'still got the bourgeoisie in London pulling the strings' and was 'ignoring the working classes'.
He told LBC Radio: 'All these ideas like net zero, which we are pushing far above anyone else looking at it… It's costing hugely working people, who have to get up in the morning and get in their van and actually deliver.'
Mr Mahmood added: 'What we need to do is get our industries back up. The cost of energy is horrendous at the moment and part of the cost of net zero is the energy cost.'
Labour needs to learn lessons of past week and be flexible in green-target drive
by Lord Blunkett
Last week, three events focussed minds on the politics and practicality of achieving net zero by 2050 and decarbonising the production of electricity over the next five years.
The first event saw the Tony Blair Institute publish a report with a foreword from Sir Tony which caused controversy, not so much about its content as the interpretation of what it was saying. Plus, the unfortunate timing just before English local elections on May 1.
The second was those elections themselves, including a by-election for a Westminster seat, mayoral and some county council elections, which saw Nigel Farage's Reform UK come out smiling.
The third was the outage of power across Spain and Portugal a few days earlier, which was a timely reminder of just how dependent we are on electricity supply and the devastation that can be caused when the lights go out, the trains stop, and charging points fail.
This reminded me of an event, three and half years ago, which seems to have faded from memory. A major storm hit Scotland and the north of England and around a hundred thousand families lost power – some of them for more than a week. Those reliant almost entirely on electricity couldn't heat their homes, even where they had ground or heat pumps, couldn't take a warm shower, nor could they use their electric oven, charge their car or connect to the Internet.
On that occasion it was a natural occurrence – ironically too frequent because of climate change – that brought down the pylons and caused, for some, much more than simple inconvenience. It was, of course, Scotland and the north of England, so the impact in relation to much of the national media was nowhere near what it might have been had the event happened in the south.
However, it did remind us – as the Blair Institute paper was intended to – that reliance on only one source of energy is not only politically dangerous but practically unwise.
That is why, in that document, they talked about carbon capture and the continuing use of alternative sources – including, for the time being, natural gas in a world where many are continue to commit to using fossil fuels, and even where a country like Norway is slowing down their transition from the very lucrative oil and gas fields to renewable sources of energy.
Reform's policy is insane
Which brings me to the local elections. Reform UK is the one party totally committed to abandoning the drive for net zero.
Their policy is insane. In years to come we will need to have protected ourselves from the vagaries of those world events which lead to fluctuations in both the availability and price of oil and gas.
Never mind the impact on the environment.
But the politics of this is genuinely tricky. So far, the moves that have been made (and yes, we as a country have made substantial moves towards net zero) have been at a heavy cost to both industry and domestic users.
Getting energy prices down quickly is a political imperative if the necessary changes aren't to become electorally toxic. Decoupling the price of electricity from the global gas market is an essential move, as is completely changing the terms of reference of the regulator, Ofgem.
At the moment, we're in a Catch-22 situation, which sees measures taken to reduce the cost of clean energy undermined by price increases, reflecting the world price of carbon.
In any case, alternatives to total reliance on electricity are surely a no-brainer. For the reasons I've outlined, we need to look creatively at what can be done – both in terms of the use of technology to clean up existing sources of energy, but also to ensure that we can switch to alternatives or make them available for the comfort, well-being and choice of the consumer.
It is absolutely true that we can accelerate growth by investment in renewables and away from dependence on carbon fuels. But it's also true that the price of energy for our industrial base is a major drag on growth and on our competitiveness. We have to square that circle.
We need targets but must be flexible
Much work is going on – including in my home city of Sheffield where the University of Sheffield, linked to ATM power and mirrored with work elsewhere, is looking to produce 'clean hydrogen', crucial to gradually replacing gas, including for some industrial forms of production.
Other innovations such as Small Modular Reactors to ensure that we are not entirely dependent on large nuclear power plants – and that we can regionalise and therefore decouple from the National Grid where it's necessary – would be both a safeguard for our national security and the avoidance of devastating cyber-attacks, but also at times of natural disasters.
The Blair Institute report touched on the critical importance of preparation for that eventuality. And so, paradoxically, did a report from the Climate Change Committee, focusing on our existing resilience and amelioration of what is continuing to impact on the sustainability of our planet and the politics of careful, well explained and, where necessary, slower moves towards a common goal.
Yes, we need targets, we need the ambition and momentum set by deadlines, but we need the flexibility to ensure that the drive for a cleaner, more pleasant and safer planet is not undermined by the political victories of those who would reverse all that has been achieved so far.
In a democracy, you have to persuade not command people to contribute in their own lives to bringing about change. You must ensure that what you're offering is a promise not a punishment, and, above all, you have to listen to them. That is the lesson of the past few weeks.