Labour’s Clean Power Push ‘Undermined’ If Bills Stay High, Top Donor Says

One of Labour’s biggest donors has said the party’s push towards clean power will be “undermined” if it fails to slash energy bills by the next election.

Dale Vince, founder of energy firm Ecotricity, told the PA news agency: “They came in promising to cut bills, the whole promise of energy independence is to get bills down and keep them there.”

He added that if bills do not fall “it undermines the whole case for the green transition in many ways, because the thing that the average person cares about is the cost of living and how to pay energy bills”.

Mr Vince has given more than £5 million to Labour and he was the party’s biggest corporate donor at the last election.

Labour has promised to reduce bills by £300 a year by 2030, and is aiming to decarbonise the power grid by the same time.

Ministers say the switch to renewable energy will help bring bills down by reducing Britain’s reliance on volatile international gas prices, which currently dictate the cost of energy across the country.

But the price of energy has gone up twice for households since last summer, and bills will rise again in April by 5% compared with current levels.

Mr Vince, while a vocal supporter of the green energy transition, said if Labour does not get bills down at the same time as decarbonising “it will be a stick that Labour gets beaten with”.

Meanwhile, he said the Government should scrap plans to make welfare cuts and replace them with a wealth tax in the upcoming spring statement.

The cuts announced earlier this week are expected to save more than £5 billion a year by 2030, but experts believe about a million people in England and Wales will lose their disability benefits as part of the overhaul.

Mr Vince said he wanted Labour to impose a 2% tax on people with wealth of £10 million or more instead.

“I’d like to see something done to the tax system that rebalances the load from the people with the least, and take just a little bit more from the people that have the most and have plenty. They aren’t struggling to live.”

He said he is “quite aware of the fact” that he is “a rich person calling for more tax for rich people”.

“I argue for what I think is the right thing, despite the impact it might have on me.”

Mr Vince was speaking as his company launched a report criticising proposals for zonal electricity pricing, which is based on proximity to where clean energy is generated.

People living near wind farms would pay less for electricity, and proponents including regulator Ofgem say it would reduce costs across the country by making the grid more efficient.

The Government has yet to decide whether to adopt the plans, which have also been backed by Greg Jackson, the boss of Octopus Energy, Britain’s biggest energy supplier.

But Mr Vince said zonal pricing would “fragment” the energy system and create “a postcode lottery for energy bills”.

He said it will also “damage investor confidence and therefore economic growth”, echoing criticism from energy giants ScottishPower, SSE, RWE and Orsted.

“We’re five years away from hopefully achieving 100% green energy on the grid, and anything getting in the way of that is problematic.

“It seems to me a hugely theoretical idea based on a bunch of wishful thinking.”

A Labour spokesperson said: “The British people voted for a government serious about making Britain energy secure with the jobs and growth that clean energy offers, and that is what we are delivering.

“In eight short months we’ve created thousands of new jobs in the clean industries of the future and secured billions in private investment for our communities, with more to come.”