Labour ditches flagship promise to spend £28billion on eco projects after funding row
SIR Keir Starmer is ditching his flagship promise to spend an extra £28billion every year to go green, The Sun can reveal.
Labour insiders said the “mission” to ramp up clean energy production with a massive borrowing hike had become “an albatross around our neck”.
The Tories have slammed the pledge, warning it will either see spiralling debt or increased taxes to meet the target.
High-level talks about how and when to drop the eye-watering £28billion sum have been held in recent days - to the fury of Shadow Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.
Green guru Ed is among a group of figures who tried to dissuade Sir Keir - but they have been overruled.
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A source told The Sun: “We’re going to drop the figure altogether. We’ll keep the promise to turn Britain into a clean energy superpower, but the £28billion has just become an albatross around our neck.”
However the climbdown still leaves Labour facing mounting questions over how they will pay for their green policies that Sir Keir insists are crucial for economic growth.
The initial pledge to splurge £28billion on eco investments every year had already been scaled back following a row over funding.
Only last Sunday the Labour leader said: “We will put in investment, investment for the future. And that’s where the £28billion figure comes from.”
Hares were set running when a “campaign bible” published this week failed to mention the number, which has been weaponised by the Tories as an unfunded promise.
Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves had already downgraded the pledge to spend £28billion annually from the first year of a Labour government, to simply hit it by 2027.
Ms Reeves first made the pledge to invest in low-carbon infrastructure at the party’s 2021 conference through a mixture of borrowing, existing government cash and private money.
Since then the Conservatives have accused Labour of plotting to clobber workers to pay for it, with Rishi Sunak this week branding it “a £28billion tax grab”.
Sources insist Sir Keir’s second campaign mission to Switch On Great British Energy will remain.
As well as a new publicly-owned energy company, it includes promises to double onshore wind capacity and triple solar power by 2030.
Despite senior sources saying the £28billion figure will be ditched, tonight a spokesman said it was still Labour policy.
A spokesman said: "We are committed to Labour's Green Prosperity Plan to drive growth and create jobs, including our plan to ramp up to £28bn of annual investment in the second half of the Parliament, subject to our fiscal rules."
Analysis: Labour ditches £28billion promise
By JACK ELSOM, Chief Political Correspondent
LABOUR’S pledge to spend £28billion each year on green investment was first announced in 2021 to huge fanfare.
But it has since become a chink in the armour of the iron-clad fiscal discipline Sir Keir Starmer wants to claim.
The promise had already been pushed back to the second half of a first Labour term, but will now be dropped altogether.
While the calculation is to rip off the plaster now - rather than let the Tories weaponise it until the election - it is yet another U-turn by Sir Keir.
The key question now is what is left of Labour’s promise? Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds previously said the £28billion was what was required to hit their ambitions.
He said last June the sum was “based on the scale of investment required to leverage in the greater amount of private investment … if we miss out on this economic opportunity, it will be, to be honest one of the worst things that the UK has ever experienced.”
Plans for a boom in clean energy - while officially staying - will surely have to be scaled back without the level of cash to pay for it.