Ed Miliband (Image: Getty)
Sir Tony Blair has attacked Ed Miliband’s energy policies as a “fantasy” amid rising bills.
The former Prime Minister turned his fire on the Energy Secretary’s drive to hit net zero, despite the UK being responsible for less than 1% of yearly global emissions of greenhouse gases.
The extraordinary red-on-red broadside came as households were warned energy bills will surge by £221 after the latest price cap rose by 13%.
Sir Tony said Britain should be pursuing cheaper energy and argued Britain cannot solve climate change alone urging ministers to focus on the immediate crisis of rising costs and energy demand
“Right now our energy costs are really high, they’re imposing costs on business, we’ve got this artificial intelligence revolution that’s going to use more and more energy,” he said.
“It’s a sort of quixotic fantasy to think that because Britain’s decided it is going to go down a different path at huge expense.”
He expressed frustration at Britain limiting North Sea drilling, while other nations continue to pursue cheaper energy alongside electrification.
Sir Tony also urged the Prime Minister to rethink Labour’s approach to net zero and abandon policies that put climate targets ahead of affordability.
The UK legally committed to balancing the greenhouse gases put into the atmosphere with the amount taken out by 2050.
But the former PM urged Labour ministers to “remove those parts of the net zero agenda which prioritise clean energy over cheaper energy”.
Asked on Wednesday whether he was proposing the Prime Minister tear up the Energy Secretary’s targets, he said: “Yes, I am, and I’ll tell you exactly why.
“It’s not that I’m against renewable energy, clean energy, and it’s not that I’m a climate denier.
“It’s coming to terms with this reality: the three biggest emitters in the world today are China, America and India. Together they account for just over 50% of global emissions.
“All of them are pursuing cheap energy and electrification. Doesn’t mean to say they’re not doing renewable energy, China builds more renewable energy than the rest of the world put together.
“It just means that the lens through which they judge policy is cheap energy and the need for electrification, particularly in the age of AI.”
Sir Tony Blair (Image: Getty)
He added: “Britain’s emissions are under 1% of global emissions, we can’t solve climate change, and to impose costs on our own businesses and consumers in order to accelerate net zero when the rest of the world is not doing so – I don’t understand the logic behind it, or shutting down our own oil and gas industry in circumstances where, again, I don’t know another country in the world that’s doing that.”
And in a particularly barbed comment aimed at Mr Miliband, he joked: “Xi Jinping is not sitting there in Beijing saying, ‘I wonder what that Ed Miliband thinks.’”
Sir Tony’s intervention came as regulator Ofgem announced that average households using both electricity and gas face an average bill rise of £18 a month from July.
The typical household could see energy costs of £1,862, up £221 on current levels, with early forecasts that this will rise further still in October.
His comments came after he released a damning 5,000-word essay through his think tank, The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, warning Labour against lurching to the left as the party becomes engulfed in a leadership battle.
Labour pledged to cut energy bills by hundreds of pounds ahead of the 2024 general election as part of its flagship Green Prosperity Plan, designed to turn Britain into a “clean energy superpower.”
Central to the strategy is GB Energy, Labour’s £8.3 billion publicly owned clean power company based in Scotland, which would help create 650,000 jobs, cut average household bills by £300 and strengthen the UK’s energy security.
Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho said: “Labour promised to cut bills by £300 but bills increased by £200 because of Ed Miliband’s policy choices before the war in Iran had even started.
“We already have some of the cleanest electricity in the world but it’s also some of the most expensive.
“We need to scrap net zero and cut the taxes and levies on bills to make electricity cheap. Whether it’s for air con, AI, industry or living standards we have to put cheap energy first.”
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice said Mr Miliband’s “net zero fanaticism is crippling British industry” and making life harder for working people.
He added: “The question is why is Keir Starmer still allows Miliband to sabotage Britain’s economy with policies that achieve virtually nothing.”
Analysts at Cornwall Insight suggested in its first forecast for October to December that the energy cap could be £1,899 per year, a 2% rise on July’s cap.
This would hit just as temperatures fall and energy usage rises.
Dr Craig Lowrey, principal consultant at Cornwall Insight: “A lot of people assume that if the conflict in the Middle East ended tomorrow, prices would return to their pre-conflict levels fairly quickly. However, that may be overly optimistic. The damage to infrastructure, the disruption to supply chains and the erosion of market confidence will not unwind overnight, and the impacts could be felt in bills for longer than many expect.”
Mr Miliband on Wednesday did not respond directly to Sir Tony’s comments, but instead blamed the rise in the price cap on “a war we did not choose”.
He added: “We know people were under pressure before this crisis, and that’s why easing that burden is our number one priority.
“We will continue to monitor the situation ahead of the winter and plan for all contingencies. In the immediate term it is essential to de-escalate this conflict to bring oil and gas prices down and as Britain faces the second fossil fuel crisis of this decade, we must learn the right lessons.
“The way to get bills down for good and avoid these price spikes is to go further and faster with this government’s drive for clean homegrown power we control. We are upgrading as many homes as possible ahead of winter with the biggest investment in warm homes in British history.”
In the King’s Speech earlier this month, the Government reiterated its manifesto commitment not to issue new licences to explore new oil and gas fields.
The Commons voted 108 to 323, majority 215, to throw out a Tory amendment to the King’s Speech which pressed ministers to approve drilling at Rosebank and Jackdaw oil fields.
Experts said that halting green taxes would cut fuel bills by around £100 and the hike in costs is mainly because of the volatility of wholesale gas prices.
Ecotricity founder Dale Vince urged the Government to remove environmental and social levies entirely from energy bills and bring it into general taxation.
He said: “They are almost always referred to as green levies but in fact they are a mixture of green and social – energy efficiency measures for poorer households for example.
“These levies are unique in being added to energy bills, for example we spend £2 billion a year subsidising trains, but there is no tax added to train tickets to pay for that – payment is from general taxation. Same with farming and food bills, subsidies are not added to the cost of food.”
The Labour donor added: “The biggest thing the government can do on these green and social levies is to remove them entirely and cover the cost from general taxation.”
Two thirds of Britons (65%) prioritise preventing increases in energy bills over removing all fossil fuels from the UK’s electricity supply (24%), a YouGov poll finds.
Only Green voters prefer removing fossil fuels from the energy supply (56%) over preventing bills increasing (34%).
Voters for all the other main parties prioritised preventing bill increases.
Jess Ralston, head of energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said: The UK is currently in a heatwave, with flooding and fires becoming more common.
“British farmers have struggled with several years of the worst harvests on record, impacting our food prices.
“Net zero is the only way we have to stop these impacts of climate change getting worse, and also means greater energy independence as more wind and solar power, heat pumps and electric vehicles means less oil and gas imported from abroad.
“The public is sick of bills soaring as a result of conflict thousands of miles away and is increasingly installing net zero technologies like solar panels to take back control of their energy – voting on net zero with their feet.”