The Labour pair also met with executives at British banks HSBC and Lloyds, as well as senior leaders at power giants RWE and Drax…reports Asian Lite News
Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to stop investing in new British oil and gas fields if Labour wins the next election. In a major departure from current government policy, the Labour leader ruled out new investment in North Sea fossil fuels as he outlined the party’s mission to go green.
Addressing business leaders and policymakers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Sir Keir called on countries to form a “clean power alliance” to rival the Opec group of oil exporting countries. Sir Keir claimed an alliance would help bring down energy bills and stressed that Labour’s energy plan did not involve fossil fuels.
“What we’ve said about oil and gas is that there does need to be a transition,” he said. “Obviously it will play its part during that transition but not new investment, not new fields up in the North Sea, because we need to go towards net zero, we need to ensure that renewable energy is where we go next.”
Sir Keir also criticised Rishi Sunak’s absence in Switzerland, describing his own attendance alongside shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves as a “statement of intent” that Britain would be “open for business” under Labour.
He blamed the UK’s economic malaise on Sunak’s lack of a growth plan. He said: “We’ve got all the attributes for investment, we just need to create the circumstances, the environment, in which we can change what I think is the drift. The fact that our Prime Minister is not here I think is evidence of the drift. And we intend to reverse that.”
Sir Keir and Reeves are using a two-day charm offensive to meet senior bankers at all the top US banks. Sir Keir was spotted at drinks hosted by JP Morgan chief executive Jamie Dimon, the most powerful banker in the US.
The Labour pair also met with executives at British banks HSBC and Lloyds, as well as senior leaders at power giants RWE and Drax.
Capping off the tour of senior business figures, the shadow Chancellor attended a party hosted by public relations guru Matthew Freud at which Sting reportedly serenaded the crowd.
Labour’s energy proposals mark a sharp departure from current policy. The UK has just held a new round for oil and gas exploration licences and has held back from joining an international pact to stop new oil and gas field developments.
Sir Keir said: “One of the things that I am proposing is a clean power alliance where countries that are in the advance when it comes to net-zero share information, co-operate and share investment with a view to driving the global prices down. So, this is an inverse Opec. Instead of trying to ensure prices stay at a certain level, it’s to drive them down, to see the common benefit, whether it’s in the UK or across the globe.”
The UK has pledged to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero by 2050. However, the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine has exposed the UK’s reliance on foreign sources of energy that have seen prices soar.
Experts have warned that the UK and other countries can not afford to turn their backs on fossil fuels.
Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Singapore’s senior minister and deputy chairman of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, said investment in all forms of energy would be needed to lower prices and ensure a smooth transition to cleaner energy.
“In the next 30 years, we’re going to have to invest significantly more in all forms of energy: Dirty energy, and especially clean energy,” he said. “We’ve under invested and we’re paying the price for it. And we’re going to pay the price for probably a decade or so in the form of higher energy prices.”
Shanmugaratnam told a separate panel in Davos that there was “no scenario, even by the most optimistic, that will give us confidence that renewables can achieve the scale necessary with the urgency we need”.