This government has been dragging its feet on energy policy since 2010.
This government has been dragging its feet on energy policy since 2010
The prospect of the televisions blacking out in the middle of BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing on a bleak, cold winter evening sometime soon should focus the minds of politicians that the UK’s energy policy needs the long view when it comes to planning and strategy.
Too often politicians look at issues through a narrow short-term prism – it was Harold Wilson who said: “A week in politics is a long time.”
A collective shiver went down the nation’s spine when this week the National Grid warned that its capacity to supply electricity in the coming months will be at a seven-year low due to generator closures and breakdowns.
Spare electricity capacity, which ran at about 5 per cent last winter, would be nearer 4 per cent this year – just three years ago the margin was a more warming 17 per cent.
Unite has more than 30,000 members working in the energy sector and we believe that this government has been dragging its feet on energy policy since 2010. For example, there have been hold-ups in the nuclear power programme and we have fallen behind such countries as Canada when it comes to developing carbon capture.
For the first time since the industrial troubles of the early 1970s the spectre of the lights going out in homes across the land has once more entered into the realms of probability.
The basis of a prosperous economy providing plentiful well-paid jobs, as well as the burgeoning domestic needs of a population of more than 60 million, is the provision of relatively cheap energy from the ‘mix’ of coal, gas, nuclear, oil and renewables.
What we need is a balanced energy policy from an incoming Labour government that increases a dependence upon indigenous sources of fuel supply such as ‘clean’ coal and tidal power.
At the same time, we need to take on board the legitimate concerns of communities about the real and perceived threats to the environment of some energy initiatives on this crowded isle.
The National Grid has given a timely warning that the age of energy supply complacency is over – and there is no divine right that the lights will go on for Len Goodman and his fellow Strictly judges, unless we get our skates on in melding together a coherent energy strategy
As Aneurin Bevan said: “This island is almost made of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organising genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish in Great Britain at the same time.”
Kevin Coyne is Unite national officer for energy
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21 Responses to “The government needs to stop dragging its feet on energy policy – before the lights go out”
Guest
“Premature”
Yea, how dare dangerous old plants be shut down! Erm…
No, that’s necessary. The problem was decades of waffling, not just Labour.
And that’s why the government is rolling out smart meters, to disconnect the poorer areas.
Guest
Right, coal coal and coal, and nuclear gets forgotten.
And anything else which might make you a profit and let you push off costs onto the poor.
David Lindsay
Can you read English? Not much point asking, if you can’t. But even so.
David Lindsay
With my emphasis added, here is the motion, co-sponsored by Ed Miliband himself, that the House of Commons passed without a vote last night:
That this House acknowledges the economic legacy of the pit closure programme in coalfield communities across the United Kingdom; notes that the recent release of the relevant 1984 Cabinet papers showed that the Government at the time misled the public about the extent of its pit closure plans and sought to influence police tactics; recognises the regeneration of former coalfield areas over the last fifteen years, the good work of organisations such as the Coalfield Regeneration Trust, and the largest industrial injury settlement in legal history secured by the previous Government for former miners suffering from bronchitis and emphysema; further recognises the ongoing problems highlighted recently by the report produced by Sheffield Hallam University on The State of the Coalfields, which revealed that there are still significant problems for the majority of Britain’s coalfield communities, such as fewer jobs, lower business formation rates, higher unemployment rates, more people with serious health issues, higher numbers in receipt of welfare benefits and a struggling voluntary and community sector; and therefore calls for the continued regeneration and much needed support for coalfield communities as part of a wider programme to boost growth in Britain’s regions.
In other words, the Conservative Party no longer even attempts to deny that the words highlighted are factually correct.
Meanwhile, we face blackouts over the winter. I cannot imagine how that can have happened.
That, or how we are always going to war in, for or on behalf of oil-producing countries.
cole
Coal? Are you out of your mind?