Energy secretary Ed Davey has warned that the Conservative party’s opposition to onshore wind turbines risks undermining the creation of British jobs as new data showed 15,400 people are now employed in the wind power industry.
The data from trade body RenewableUK shows a 70% rise in jobs in the wind power industry since 2010, while wind supplied 9% of all UK electricity. The industry attracted £2.6bn of investment in 2013-14, of which £1.1bn stayed in the UK.
But Davey said that the Conservative party’s “ideological” opposition to onshore turbines was undermining new British jobs and driving up customer bills because wind is the cheapest clean energy.
“We have had a major leap forward in recent years and there is a really good story to tell,” Davey said. “But I want to be clear I am having a go at the Conservative party here. It has made it clear onshore wind is something they don’t want to see in the future expansion of low-carbon energy and I think that is undermining investment now and undermining jobs.”
The Tory communities secretary, Eric Pickles, has called in more than 50 windfarm planning applications for his adjudication and in October Davey said his cabinet colleague was in danger of “abusing ministerial power”. “This political noise we keep hearing is undermining investor confidence in onshore wind and having a contagion effect in renewable energy more generally,” Davey said.
“Anyone who undermines investor confidence in Britain should explain themselves,” he said. “Our economic recovery is vital for British jobs and our prosperity and I hope people who put that at risk for ideological reasons will get punished at the polls.”
Davey said the prime minister, David Cameron, was committed to the UK’s carbon emission targets, but that blocking windfarms would hurt energy bill-payers: “If you take onshore wind off the table, which we know is the cheapest large-scale renewable, then you are going to increase people’s energy bills.”
According to RenewableUK, full-time jobs in the commercial British wind industry rose 8% in the 12 months to June 2014.
“That’s a growth rate that most other sectors can only dream of – renewables is the employment engine of the future. However, this growth is threatened with extinction by the Conservatives’ misguided policy of ending all future support for it. The Tories are way out of step with the two-thirds majority of the public which consistently supports onshore wind,” said Maria McCaffery, chief executive of RenewableUK.
Tom Greatrex, Labour’s shadow energy minister, also attacked the Conservative opposition to wind power. “We have mounting evidence that Pickles is engaged in a crusade to subvert and undermine the planning process and local decisions in pursuit of his party’s economically illogical anti-renewables dogma. We now have an effective backdoor ban on onshore wind in the UK. The Tories need to wake up and realise they are hurting British industries and British jobs,” said Greatrex.
Earlier in November, the Conservative environment secretary, Liz Truss, moved to curb the growth of solar power farms, which she described as a big problem.
The latest information on jobs in the wind power industry came as the Conservative energy minister, Matthew Hancock, prepared to announce a £1.5m initiative to establish a national college for onshore oil and gas. “Shale gas is an enormous opportunity for the UK and one that we simply can’t afford to miss out on,” he said. “Only by arming people with the skills they need to be shale specialists can we provide career opportunities for thousands of young people and help the UK economy remain strong and competitive.”
RenewableUK also reported that windfarms generated £18m in community benefits and contributed £6m to local councils through business rates in 2013-14. Davey said that a supply chain initiative with the business department aimed to increase the proportion of the investment spent in Britain.
The green economy employs almost a million people in the UK, more than teaching, and in 2011-12, the last year the government collected the statistics, was worth £128bn, or 8% of GDP. In 2012, John Cridland, director general of the CBI, said if the government untangled the “gnarly mess” of its policy a green business boost could increase the growth rate of the UK economy by 0.5% by 2015, a gain of nearly £20bn in GDP.
