Labour conference: Reeves pledges to spend £252bn on green investment by 2030
Labour will spend £252bn on a package of green investment if it wins government at the next election, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced.
Reeves today said she would spend £28bn a year on green infrastructure “to unlock that potential, create secure jobs and protect our planet for future generations”, while also declaring that the party is now “unapologetically pro-worker and unapologetically pro-business”.
Reeves’ team said the package would start from a hypothetical 2022 election, two years earlier than currently planned, and would run until 2030.
It comes alongside a raft of other economic policy announcements unveiled in today’s speech, including tighter fiscal rules for a future Labour government, the scrapping of the business rates system and a new Office for Value for Money to crack down on spending waste.
Speaking at Labour party conference in Brighton, Reeves said: “I will be a responsible chancellor, I will be Britain’s first green chancellor.
“I will invest in this country’s green transition: giga-factories to build batteries for electric vehicles, thriving hydrogen industry, offshore wind with turbines made in Britain, more green places and safe cycle paths, planting trees and building flood defences, keeping homes warm and getting energy bills down, good new jobs in communities throughout Britain.”
The plan has echoes of Joe Biden’s Building Back Better agenda, which will see trillions of dollars spent on green infrastructure.
Reeves referenced Biden’s economic plan, saying that “the United States is enjoying the strongest recovery of any major economy built on the knowledge that wealth doesn’t just trickle down from the top but comes from the bottom-up and the middle-out”.
One of Reeves’ key goals in her post is to try and convince the electorate that Labour can be trusted with the economy, after the socialist Jeremy Corbyn leadership.
She tackled this head-on in the speech by saying that “Labour won’t be making promises we can’t keep or commitments we can’t pay for” and that “value for money means knowing when and where not to spend”.
She added: “So believe me when I say: I am more than happy to take on the Tories when it comes to economic competence, because I know we can win.
“This isn’t a leap into the unknown. This is common sense.”
The CBI, a major business advocacy group, said it was “hugely welcome to hear Labour describe itself as pro-business”.
Its chief economist Rain Newton Smith said: “This represents a significant shift, signalling that the party views business as part of the solution and not a problem to be solved.”
John Dickie, Chief Executive of London First, said: “The business rates system is broken so bold measures that reduce the tax burden on firms are welcome, and would support the bounce back from the pandemic.”