New Climate APPG Chair Says Government Must Learn From "Poor" Energy Transitions Like Margaret Thatcher's Mine Closures
Luke Murphy was elected as Labour MP for Basingstoke in the General Election in July (Alamy)
3 min read
Labour MP and new chair of the Climate All-Party Parliamentary Group Luke Murphy has said the Government must avoid the mistakes of past "unjust" energy transitions such as Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher's closure of the mines in the 1980s.
Murphy, who is the newly elected MP for Basingstoke, told PoliticsHome that he wanted his APPG to focus on advocating for a "just" transition to green renewable energy across the UK that would "build public support and bring people with us".
“In the UK, we've actually seen too many examples of poor transitions and unjust transitions, and that's the thing that we've got to move away from," he said.
"Over the last 14 years we haven't seen enough of that focus on involvement of workers. And that's also what we saw through the 1980s in the closure of the mines and the impact that that had on communities."
Central to Labour's energy policy is the proposed publicly owned energy investment company GB Energy, that will be headquartered in Scotland. Before the election, Keir Starmer claimed that the company would create jobs that would "last for decades”.
Murphy argued that it was vital that the Government "get this right" and learn from past mistakes by previous governments.
"Not just from a moral point of view, but there is actually a huge opportunity to be grasped here in the North Sea and other carbon intensive industries, there's a huge green growth opportunity to be gained as well as long as we take people with us," he said.
"GB Energy is possibly one of our most popular policies and that is because people recognise that it offers a stake in the success of the transition."
He said while there had been some "surprising" success in onshore and offshire wind and reducing emissions in recent years, "what we haven't seen is a success story in terms of the jobs and growth that that delivered" – which he added would only come about with a "green, genuine, long term industrial strategy".
Murphy became Basingstoke's first ever Labour MP when he unseated Conservative Maria Miller on 4 July. It had been a Tory safe seat nearly all of its near 150-year-history.
Before entering Parliament, he led the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank's work on Energy, Climate, Environmental Justice, Homes & Infrastructure, and was part of the team that originally called for Labour to pledge £28bn a year to green investment – something which Labour did commit to before ditching the pledge in February this year.
In June last year, when Murphy still worked for IPPR, he said that he welcomed then-Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves' announcement that she would phase in the £28bn, saying it was "good to see Labour remains committed to its Green Prosperity Plan" and that the investment would be "transformational for the economy and environment".
Now, asked by PoliticsHome whether he felt dropping the figure had been a mistake, he said: "I think you can get caught too much up in precise figures.
"What really matters is the outcome. Have you got the right strategy, the right investment, the right political and policy environment? Have you got the right organisational structure?
"And having that partnership approach with businesses and trade unions, having a strong strategy in place, having the Taskforce on Net Zero Policy start, those are the things that are going to make the difference."
He added that it would be important to ensure workers in fuel industries are "genuinely involved" and that that would have to involve a close relationship between Government, businesses and trade unions, with policies developed "with a focus on jobs, skills and training that we need to see in order to make sure that we're creating those jobs at the future as well".
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