Burnham to announce new publicly-owned grid operator
Andy Burnham is expected to announce a new publicly-owned body which will invest in the UK’s electricity grid in an attempt to bring down Britain’s sky-high energy costs.
The Prime Minister is tipped to unveil Great British Grid, which will speed up connections to the grid by driving up competition for projects, during his Labour conference speech on Tuesday.
Burnham will frame the announcement as part of his efforts to have “honest conversations” with the public about the “difficult issues” that have been ignored by previous governments.
The Prime Minister is pitching greater control over public utilities as the answer to many of these challenges. This formed a major part of his campaign for the Labour leadership and is expected to feature heavily in his speech in Liverpool on Tuesday.
The creation of Great British Grid, as first reported by the BBC, will be billed as the first move as part of these ambitions.
Ministers said the new publicly-owned company would compete with existing private companies to invest in transmission connection projects.
GB Grid will also make it easier for firms to be connected to the grid by supporting and even co-investing in projects alongside these private companies.
£70bn to rewire grid
The new initiative will be funded by the existing budget of GB Energy, the publicly-owned green power company set up under Keir Starmer’s government last year.
In his speech on Tuesday afternoon, the Prime Minister is tipped to say that GB Grid will “work with the private sector and network companies” to “reform a broken energy market”, the BBC reported.
“It will increase competition to drive down costs and speed up delivery so businesses can connect faster and grow quicker. This is what more public control can do,” he will say, according to the report.
Shares in London’s listed energy firms slipped on Tuesday morning, with analysts at Interactive Investor pointing towards the threat of greater competition posted by Burnham’s new publicly-owned operator.
The National Grid shed 1.2 per cent in early trading, Centrica lost one per cent while Ithaca and SSE dropped about two per cent each.
Britain’s ageing electricity grid is due for a significant rewiring in the coming years, with regulator Ofgem forecasting the current rate of investment will need to be quadrupled to £70bn between now and 2031.
Burnham is expected to make a broader pitch for greater public control of the country’s utilities when he takes the stage for his first Labour conference speech as the party’s leader.
The Prime Minister is expected to say Britain is currently “run for vested interests” and politicians need to take “more control of the basics so that we can make [the country] more functional again”.
He will announce a “raft of policies and commitments that will bring hope again to Britain”, according to a statement released ahead of his speech.
The former Manchester mayor has consistently called for greater public control of the water and energy industries but is yet to resolve the future of the beleaguered Thames Water, which has been creaking under a £20bn debt pile.