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Rishi Sunak said Labour’s programme for government was in “tatters” as Sir Keir Starmer battled to defend his decision to slash his £28bn green investment plan, the opposition party’s most prominent policy.
Speaking on Friday, a day after Labour reduced its commitment to £4.7bn a year — a cut of more than 80 per cent — the UK prime minister said the U-turn showed his opponent had no plan for government.
But Starmer insisted the British public would “appreciate” him being “straight” about Labour’s plans for the economy.
“Their signature economic policy is in tatters, and when you don’t have a plan, you can’t deliver any change for the country,” Sunak said on a visit to south-west England.
Labour, which has had a consistent double digit polling lead since 2022, cut its £28bn pledge this week to ward off accusations by Sunak’s Conservatives that it would increase borrowing in office.
On Friday Starmer said Labour would still deliver on its green promises if it took power, blaming the shift on the Conservatives’ stewardship of the public finances.
“I would much rather be straight with the British public than make a promise I can’t keep,” the Labour leader said.
“All of the commitments I’ve made on outcomes, they all remain, and they’re fully costed.”
Labour’s green prosperity plan was first announced in 2021 to present the party as willing to make ambitious investments on the transition to net zero.
The party still intends to retain elements of the original plan, such as a £8.3bn state-owned energy company called GB Energy and a £7.3bn fund to decarbonise heavy industry.
However, a promised national insulation scheme called the Warm Homes Plan will be slashed from £6bn a year to just over £1.3bn a year. Labour has now promised to insulate 5mn homes over five years, in effect half its previous target.
Starmer said on Thursday that about half of the reduced green spending pledge would be funded from Labour’s promised windfall levy on North Sea oil and gas, with the rest from additional government borrowing.
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves also blamed Labour’s U-turn on the “Conservatives crash[ing] the economy and causing huge damage”.
“Many people watching have had to change their plans over the past year or so because of higher mortgage rates, energy bills, higher taxes,” she told the BBC on Friday. “We’ve had to update our plans as well.”