Government defeats bid to make GB Energy prioritise cutting bills by £300

The Government has defeated attempts to make reducing household bills by up to £300 a strategic priority for its new flagship energy company.

The Conservatives tabled an amendment to the Great British Energy Bill in a bid to ensure Labour delivers on promises it made during the general election.

But MPs voted 361 to 124, majority 237, to reject the amendment.

A separate Tory amendment to make it a strategic priority for Great British Energy to meet the Government’s commitment to create 650,000 jobs across the country by 2030 was also defeated.

The Bill, which would enable GB Energy to be established, later cleared the House of Commons after MPs voted 361 to 111, majority 250, to approve it at third reading.

Invest or decline. That is the choice. GBE, the right choice for energy security, bills, jobs

Ed Miliband

It will undergo further scrutiny in the House of Lords at a later date.

GB Energy, once established, would be tasked with investing in and developing clean energy projects.

Lauding the Bill’s passage, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband told MPs: “Great British Energy is the right idea for our time, and has in a short time won huge support.

“I am sorry that the Opposition has chosen to wallow in its minority status and stand out against it. But let me tell them their vote tonight will have consequences.

“Every project Great British Energy announces in constituencies round Britain, every job it creates, every local solar project it initiates, every wind project it invests in, we will tell their constituents they opposed it.

“The anti-jobs, pro-energy-insecurity party, and we will hang their opposition to GBE round their necks from here till the next general election.

“Invest or decline. That is the choice. GBE, the right choice for energy security, bills, jobs.”

Shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho said Labour MPs “have voted against holding Great British Energy accountable for cutting people’s energy bills by £300 and for creating 650,000 jobs”.

She continued: “(Mr Miliband) talks about hanging things around people’s necks. Those are the promises he got his colleagues to make over and over again in the election, and we will see what the electorate remembers.

“These are not trivial matters – people’s energy bills, people’s jobs, businesses ability to succeed in this country – because the risk is that this Government is heading towards a 2029 election, where industries have been lost and bills have gone up, exactly the opposite of what the electorate has been promised.”

She added: “Far from making energy cheaper and more secure, what (Mr Miliband) is going to do is send people’s bills through the roof, and more and more people are sounding the alarm about whether he’ll even be able to keep the lights on, something that we were able to do in the height of an energy crisis.

“So tonight, they’ve shown their true colours. They have voted against making their own energy company accountable, and if he cannot even stack up his own election promises, why should we back him on this Bill?”

GB Energy chairman Juergen Maier, speaking during the Bill’s committee stage earlier this month, was asked when he expected GB Energy to bring down energy bills.

He said the “only way” to get energy bills down and get greater energy security was to get “more renewable energy on the grid”, adding: “The exact mechanism by which that happens is, of course, a matter of policy — how you decide to bring those bills to the consumer.

“That is not the scope of Great British Energy; it is not the scope of the Bill either.”

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