When global gas prices spiked as a result of Putin’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, it demonstrated just how vulnerable Britain is. The average annual household energy bill shot up by 95% and it was only because of the £23 billion Energy Price Guarantee that average bills didn’t hit £3,500.
The cost of energy may have fallen since, but bills remain unaffordable for too many. Even before Ukraine was invaded, Britain’s electricity was among the most expensive in the world. In 2021, British households paid 45% more per kWh than French households, 89% more than South Korean households and 130% more than American households.
Energy is expensive and we are vulnerable to international fossil fuel shocks for a simple reason: we have not built enough clean domestic power sources. It is simply too hard to get stuff built in Britain. Investors are desperate to pour billions into energy projects across the country, but are blocked by our planning system at every turn.
Take East Anglia Two, an offshore wind farm that when built will power 800,000 homes with clean renewable energy. To get planning permission, Scottish Power had to produce an 85,000 page planning application with 12,270 pages devoted to an environmental statement. When the project was finally approved, it got challenged in the courts. Construction has been delayed while energy bills have continued to rise with families and businesses finding it harder and harder to make ends meet.
It doesn’t have to be this way
Britain Remade has a plan to make Britain energy secure by the end of the decade. Let’s be frank: building enough clean domestic sources of power to end our reliance on imported fossil fuels is no small task. We need to triple the amount of energy we generate from offshore wind, more than double our solar power capacity, and build more grid infrastructure in the next six years than was built in the last three decades to bring that power to people’s homes.
Our plan targets and eliminates delays at every stage of the planning process. Our plan reforms the regulations that push up the costs of building safe, reliable nuclear power plants. And our plan creates the conditions for the biggest investment in the grid since its creation.
Becoming energy secure by the end of the decade won’t be easy, but it is worth doing. Imagine a Britain no longer exposed to international gas price spikes; a Britain where manufacturing jobs are saved and new ones are created building the clean technologies of tomorrow; and crucially, a Britain where families no longer have to worry about whether they can afford to pay their electricity bills.