Jenrick backs overhaul of UK CfDs
Robert Jenrick has said Net Zero has been a “total disaster” for the UK
Commenting on Robert Jenrick’s remarks at a Bruges Group event last night, Maurice Cousins, Campaign Director at Net Zero Watch, said:
Robert Jenrick’s intervention last night has opened a new front in the collapse of the political consensus around Net Zero. His call for the dismantling of the Contracts for Difference regime for renewables reflects a growing recognition that weather-dependent energy is driving high costs, industrial decline, and political instability.
Coming from a Shadow Justice Secretary and former Cabinet minister, these remarks confirm that the political foundations of Ed Miliband’s Clean Power 2030 agenda are crumbling. With the public demanding action on the cost of living, he is doing what responsible leadership requires: challenging the policy assumptions that have kept prices high and growth weak.
For renewable energy investors, this shifting consensus carries clear risks. As the UK pivots back to its former position as an energy-abundant, high-growth economy built on dense and reliable generation, the political risk profile of weather-dependent technologies is changing. Subsidy-reliant renewables are now exposed to the likelihood of a major public backlash and policy reversal. They therefore carry a growing risk of becoming stranded assets.
Be left in no doubt: the next election will be a de facto referendum on Net Zero and the economic viability of projects awarded under Labour’s Clean Power 2030 framework.
ENDS
Notes to Editor
Full quote (Robert Jenrick, at Bruges Group event):
Question: Do you think the Conservatives should be looking at ways as how to dismantle that [Contracts for Difference] regime?
Jenrick: “Yes. I think we should do. I think Net Zero has been a complete disaster. It has been unilateral economic disarmament. It has impoverished people. There is nothing progressive about this. It is the poorest in society who are hardest hit by the high energy bills we have. And it is decimating what little remains of our industrial base. The car industry. The steel industry. The chemicals industry. You name it. And that is leaving us incredibly exposed as a country. You know I think heavy industry about twenty years ago was about thirteen per cent of GDP. Today, it is about seven per cent. So our already small industrial base is declining at a rapid pace…
We have got to have a sensible energy policy that means we can have industry and means we can compete. It cannot be that we have energy prices that are four times that of the United States and thirty per cent higher than Germany. It just doesn’t work. What I would propose is, yes, look at those subsidies [for renewables] and get rid of some of them. I think we should obviously maximise the North Sea, as Kemi has said recently. I think we should build new gas fired power stations and be honest that gas is here to stay for the foreseeable future. Go for new nuclear. Do everything we can to get energy abundance. Cheap and reliable energy should be the foundation of our policy.”
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