Last week some significant announcements highlighted that there’s now clear blue water between the economic visions of this Labour Government and the increasingly merged views of Reform and the Conservative Party.

Sixteen months ago, Labour was elected into Government on the back of a strong commitment to transition the economy away from one that is based on fossil-fuel consumption to one that is based on renewable energy. The bedrock of this vision was the establishment of GB Energy – an organisation which supports the transition to a renewable energy future.

Today 45 to 50 per cent of the UK’s energy usage is renewable. It is this Government’s objective to accelerate that to 95 per cent as quickly as possible and in so doing, reduce energy bills by breaking the link with wholesale gas prices and removing the influence of dictators like Putin on our household energy bills. But another massively underestimated aspect of the green energy transition is the creation of hundreds of thousands of good quality new jobs.

This is particularly relevant to us here in Cornwall. There is simply no other part of the UK that benefits from the breadth of renewable energy opportunities and critical minerals – essential to support the transition – as we do here. Onshore wind, offshore wind in the Celtic Sea, solar (we are one of the most productive areas in the UK already), geothermal (the vast and as yet untapped heat source beneath our feet) and tidal and that’s before we consider tin, lithium and tungsten about which I’ve written several times before.

The Labour government’s national Clean Energy Jobs Plan will deliver over 400,000 new jobs across the UK in clean energy industries between now and 2030. The plan maps out how local communities can take advantage of the boom in clean energy jobs, with 31 priority occupations including plumbers, electricians and welders set to benefit.

The clean energy economy is currently growing three times faster than the wider economy, and the Labour government’s analysis shows that employment in clean energy jobs is expected to double to 860,000 by 2030, including thousands of jobs in Cornwall.

What a stark contrast to the Conservative/Reform posturing. Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice has promised to “wage war” against clean energy, although conversely he said on Radio Cornwall a couple of months ago that he’s in favour of lithium extraction. What does he think the lithium is going to be used for?

Green tech, of course! In February 2025, a CBI report found 950,000 jobs are currently supported by the clean energy and net zero economy. The Labour Government’s national plan for the clean energy mission will deliver over 400,000 extra jobs by 2030.

This means Reform’s war on clean energy would put around 1.4-million jobs supported by clean energy at risk from 2030. Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives earlier this month pledged to repeal the Climate Change Act, a framework that businesses campaigned for in the first place and has ensured tens of billions of pounds of investment in homegrown British energy since it was passed by a Labour Government with Conservative support 17 years ago.

The Conservatives seem to have totally lost their way since then.