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‘I was frustrated’: The woman who told Labour it didn’t need to spend £28bn on green investment
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
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I don't see what would be wrong with "overspending" for something like this. The UK is in control of its own currency and everything that is spent on green energy now is money that won't be needed to buy fossil fuel abroad or climate mitigation measures in the future.
I think a case could have been made for it. Borrowing to invest is allowed by the fiscal rules, and it would've been popular with a large set of the electorate. Weighing it against the electoral impact to the presentation of the party as being fiscally responsible would've been a tough needle to thread though. Many folks point to Corbyn's WASPI payout policy and nationalisation of BT as being among the key things that killed his campaign back in the day for much the same reason.
The way the lady in the article speaks though, it sounds like there is maybe a case for pursuing private funding as a better option. I've read elsewhere that even a modest public investment over the long term can encourage tons of private investment due to the certainty it provides. If the planned ~£15bn public investment ends up attracting enough private money to get up to a similar amount to £28bn and comes with tons of consequent economic activity around the edges then this may end up having been the better approach.
On the other hand, if it attracts hardly any — perhaps due to the Tories pledging to scrap GB Energy and the NWF, thereby removing the long-term certainty around the whole thing — then it may turn out to be a massively consequential and disastrous route to have taken. I think we'll have an inkling long before 2029 if that's likely to be the case.