I thank the hon. Lady for that, although she has eaten into about 30 seconds-worth of my saying nice things about Labour councils. In Bristol,
the Labour council set up a 20-year city leap project in partnership with Ameresco—a £424 million public-private investment in green infrastructure. It is groundbreaking. It is helping Bristol to go carbon neutral by 2030—the same ambition as Wakefield. Bristol will retrofit all our housing stock by 2030, reduce our CO2 output by 140,000 tonnes, and create over 1,000 green jobs in the process. England’s biggest wind turbine will open shortly in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones). It is community-owned, will provide low-carbon electricity to 3,500 homes, and save nearly 2,000 tonnes of CO2
per year. It will mean that energy can be sold back to the grid, and the money can be reinvested in local communities.
I turn to Hull. There was a recent event in Parliament with the aptly named “Oh Yes! Net Zero” campaign. It is a really good example of collaborative local working; it involves 150 local organisations that support the city’s efforts to reach net zero. In Oxford, the Labour-led authority has been leading the way with innovative solutions, particularly on battery technology. Redbridge is home to Europe’s most powerful electric vehicle charging hub, and a project called Energy Superhub Oxford launched in July last year with the wider aim of decarbonising the city, uses the latest in battery technology, and, for the first time in the UK, infrastructure that links directly to the national grid’s high-voltage network. I echo what was said about the need to ensure that the grid has capacity to support local innovative projects. To give one last example, in Liverpool, there is a groundbreaking project: an agreement between the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and the Korea Water Resources Corporation to create what could be the world’s largest tidal power scheme in the Mersey.
Taking a placed-based approach to net zero is vital in ensuring that the opportunities from the transition start to finally level up the towns and cities of the UK, as opposed to letting them down as this Government have done. Around 95% of Britain’s population lives in areas where the local authorities have declared a climate emergency but, as has been said, councils and combined authorities must be given the resources and powers they need to act. As one contributor to the right hon. Member for Kingswood’s net zero review put it:
“Net Zero achievements at local government level are in spite of government, not because of it”.
That would change under a Labour Government, which would recognise and value the role local authorities can play and the immense difference local action can make. We would work in tandem with local authorities to deliver our green prosperity plan of capital investment. That would support the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs in every corner of the UK, doubling our onshore wind capacity, tripling solar capacity and quadrupling offshore wind capacity. It would be financed by Labour’s national wealth fund, ensuring that, when investment flows into new industries, in partnership with business, the British people will own a share of that wealth, as happens in other countries.
Surprisingly, we did not talk much in the debate about retrofitting homes. We have the least energy-efficient housing in Europe. Millions of homes are going cold and premium-priced heat is escaping through roofs, windows and walls. Labour’s warm homes plan would upgrade the 19 million homes that need it, cutting bills
and creating thousands of good jobs for electricians, engineers and construction workers across the country. It is important to stress that this is about economic growth. It is about a future industrial strategy. It is about jobs for the future. It is about the prosperity of our local communities. And it is about saving the planet at the same time. Local government has a key role to play in that. I just hope the Government step up and help it.
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