'Cut energy bills' with green revolution or risk losing next election, Keir Starmer warned
Sir Keir Starmer was warned that his green economy revolution must cut energy bills or he risks losing the next general election .
Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy, highlighted what has happened to the Democrats in America as pointing to the urgency to ensure the drive to net zero in the UK reduces the gas and electricity bills of households across the country.
Sir Keir and Chancellor Rachel Reeves have already dramatically scaled back Net Zero and Energy Security Secretary Ed Miliband's green economy blueprint which was set to cost £28 billion a year.
Mr Jackson stressed that US president Joe Biden's flagship Inflation Reduction Act had had a major impact on promoting green industry.
But the head of the energy giant told BBC radio: "The reality is that while the US had made some very strong moves on climate change , the Inflation Reduction Act sent seismic waves around economies in Europe. it didn't bring bills down.
"The most important thing we have got to do is bring people's bills down."
He stressed that for many US voters the economy was the No1 election issue, so they swung to Donald Trump as their living standards were not rising, despite healthy economic growth.
"At the end of the day, people vote based on their quality of life," he added.
"Clean power, renewables, is an opportunity to drop the cost of energy."
The new Government's green energy blueprint would only work if bills fall: "That's the reality," he added.
Ahead of the July general election, Labour claimed its energy plans would save families "up to £300" on their energy bills from 2030.
Just days ago, Mr Miliband tweeted: "Clean power by 2030 is achievable, cheaper, and makes our country more secure."
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, an ally of Donald Trump, is already arguing that energy bills are more likely to rise in coming years.
Mr Jackson stressed that many of the billions unleashed by the Inflation Reduction Act went to incumbent industries, for example carbon capture schemes to contain the emissions from fossil fuel plants.
"That puts bills up," he added.
"We have got the solutions to climate change and they are cheaper than the fossil fuel world."
But pressed on the huge subsidies for some clean energy plants and that the output from wind farms can't be stored, he said: "The challenge in the UK is at the moment we keep building wind farms where the subsidies are highest and where it's windiest.
"That means, for example, there is one new wind farm built off the north of Scotland in Shetland where in the first month of operation it was turned off 62% of the time because although it was windy there wasn't much demand there.
"What we need to do is have market reform so that companies instead of being paid to turn off wind farms, people get cheap power."
He also stressed planning reforms, which could benefit his company, would help the transition to a greener economy.
Mr Miliband is one of a string of now Cabinet ministers who have previously slammed Trump, the first convicted criminal elected US president.
He labelled Trump a "groper" and a "racist" in November 2016.
"The idea that we have shared values with a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper beggars belief," Mr Miliband told the BBC.
"And I think we should be deeply worried about the implications for many of the things that we care about. Tackling climate change - he says it's invented by the Chinese, climate change, it's a hoax."
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