General Election 2024: All Manifesto Energy Pledges

Alba Party

• Create new oil and gas fields licensed with a condition for them to be a zero-carbon development.
• Fight to save Grangemouth.
• Support a sustainable future for North Sea oil and gas workers.
• Oppose the SNP and Labour’s stance on the future of the North Sea that would “cost 100,000 jobs across the UK.”
• Create a public energy company to serve the best interest of the people of Scotland.
• Call for the immediate deployment of carbon capture technology.

Conservative and Unionist Party

• Commitment to meeting the UK’s 2050 Net Zero target.
• Cut the cost of Net Zero for consumers by taking a “more pragmatic approach, guaranteeing no new green levies or charges” while accelerating the rollout of renewables.
• Ensure annual licensing rounds for oil and gas production from the North Sea to provide energy and protect high-skilled and well-paid jobs in the industry; and, keep the windfall tax on oil and gas companies until 2028-2029, unless prices fall back to normal sooner.
• Treble offshore wind capacity to deliver low-cost, home-grow energy and support the development of vibrant industrial clusters.
• Ensure democratic consent for onshore wind, updating our National Planning Policy Framework to ensure that local areas which host onshore wind directly benefit, including potentially through energy bill discounts.
• Guarantee a vote in the next Parliament on the next stage of our pathway, with adoption of any new target accompanies by a proper consideration of the plans and policies requires to meet the target.
• Reforming the Climate Change Committee, giving it an explicit mandate to consider cost to households and UK energy security in its future climate advice.
• Implement the recommendations of the Winser review and cut waiting times to get grid connection.
• Undertake a review into the advantages of alternative network technologies, compared to overhead pylons. The review will consider moving to a presumption in favour of underground where cost-competitive.
• Invest £6bn in energy efficiency over the next three years to make around a million homes warmer and will fund an energy efficiency voucher scheme, open to every household in England, to support instillation of energy efficiency measures.
• Maintain the energy price cap and continuously review and reform standing charges to keep them as low as possible.

Green Party

• Ensure that all new homes meet Passivhaus or equivalent standards and house builders include solar panels and heat pumps on all new homes, where appropriate.
• Push for a local-authority-led, street-by-street retrofit programme to insulate homes, provide clean heat and start to adapt our buildings to more extreme climate conditions. This would mean an investment of:
  • £29bn over the next five years to insulate homes to an EPC B standard or above as part of a ten-year programme.
  • £4bn over the next five years to insulate other buildings to a high standard
  • £9bn over the next five years for low-carbon heating systems (e.g. heat pumps) for homes and other buildings
• Push for a £40bn investment per year to shift to a green economy over the course of the next Parliament.
• Introduce a carbon tax on all fossil fuel imports and domestic extraction, based on greenhouse gas emissions produced when fuel is burned, and further remove all oil and gas subsidies and cancel any recent fossil fuel licenses.
• Calling for railways, water companies and the ‘Big 5’ to be brought into public ownership.
• Calling for £12.4bn investment in skills an training, equipping workers to play a full role in the green economy.
• Calling for £2bn a year in grant funding for local authorities to help businesses decarbonise.
• Push for wind to provide around 70% of the UK’s electricity by 2030 and deliver 80GW of offshore wind, 53GW of onshore wind, and 100GW of solar by 2035.
• Greater investment in energy storage capacity, and more efficient electricity distribution.
• More community owned energy sources, allowing them to use any profits from selling excess energy to reduce local bills and benefit the communities.
• Phase-out of nuclear energy.

Labour Party

• Introduce a new Energy Independence Act to establish the framework for Labour’s energy and climate policies.
• Work with the private sector to double onshore wind, triple solar power, and quadruple offshore wind by 2030.
• Invest in CCUS, hydrogen and marine energy, and ensure the UK has the long-term energy storage our country needs.
• Ensure long-term security of the nuclear power sector, extending the lifetime of existing plants, and will also invest and process new nuclear power stations, as well as ensure that Small Modular Reactors play their key role in achieving energy security while securing thousands of good, skilled jobs.
• Maintain a strategic reserve of gas power stations to guarantee the security of supply while ensuring a phased and responsible transition in the North Sea.
• Embrace the future of energy production and storage which will make use of existing offshore infrastructure and the skills of our offshore workforce.
• Will not revoke existing licences and will partner with business and workers to manage existing fields for the entirety of their lifespan. However, Labour will not issue new licenses to explore new fields as they will not contribute to keeping bills low or to our energy security, and will also not grant new coal licenses and will ban fracking for good.
• Update national planning policy to ensure the planning system meets the needs of a modern economy, making it easier to build laboratories, digital infrastructure, and gigafactories.
• Set out new national policy statements, make major projects faster and cheaper by slashing red tape, and build support for developments by ensuring communities directly benefit.
• Create a new publicly-owned company, Great British Energy. Great British Energy will partner with industry and trade unions to deliver clean power by co-investing in leading technologies; will help support capital-intensive projects; and will deploy local energy production to benefit communities across the country. To support this, Labour will capitalise Great British Energy with £8.3 billion over the next parliament
• Deploy more distributed production capacity through their Local Power Plan. Great British Energy will partner with energy companies, local authorities, and co-operatives to install thousands of clean power projects, through a combination of onshore wind, solar, and hydropower projects.
• Work with industry to upgrade our national transmission infrastructure and rewire Britain.
• Reward clean energy developers with a British Jobs Bonus, allocating up to £500 million per year from 2026, to incentivise firms who offer good jobs, terms and conditions and build their manufacturing supply chains in our industrial heartlands, coastal areas, and energy communities.
• Invest an extra £6.6 billion over the next parliament to upgrade five million homes to cut bills for families.
• Offer grants and low-interest loans to support investment in insulation and other improvements such as solar panels, batteries and low carbon heating to cut bills.
• Ensure homes in the private rented sector meet minimum energy efficiency standards by 2030.
• Ensure the institutional framework for policy making reflects the commitments to reach Net Zero and meet the UK’s carbon budgets.

Liberal Democrats

• Make homes warmer and cheaper to heat with a ten-year emergency upgrade programme, starting with free insulation and heat pumps for those on low incomes, and ensure that all new homes are zero-carbon.
• Drive a rooftop solar revolution by expanding incentives for households to install solar panels, including a guaranteed fair price for electricity sold back into the grid.
• Invest in renewable power so that 90% of the UK’s electricity is generated from renewables by 2030.
• Appoint a Chief Secretary for Sustainability in the Treasury to ensure that the economy is sustainable, resource-efficient and zero-carbon, establish a new Net Zero Delivery Authority to coordinate action across government departments and work with devolved administrations, and hand more powers and resources to local councils for local Net Zero strategies.
• Establish national and local citizens’ assemblies to give people real involvement in the decisions needed to tackle climate change.
• Restore the UK’s role as a global leader on climate change, by returning international development spending to 0.7% of national income, with tackling climate change a key priority for development spending.
• Require the National Infrastructure Commission to take fully into account the environmental implications of all national infrastructure decisions.
• Putting tackling climate change at the heart of a new industrial strategy.
• Investing in education and training to equip people with the skills needed for the low-carbon economy of the future.
• Make it cheaper and easier to switch to electric vehicles, restoring the 2030 requirement, investing in active travel and public transport, and electrifying Britain’s railways, and reducing the climate impact of flying.
• Implement the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism for high-emission products, protecting UK businesses from unfair competition.
• Introduce a new subsidised Energy-Saving Homes scheme, with pilots to find the most effective combination of tax incentives, loans and grants, together with advice and support.
• Introduce a social tariff for the most vulnerable to provide targeted energy discounts for vulnerable households.
• Decoupling electricity prices from the wholesale gas price.
• Provide more advice to companies on cutting emissions, supporting the development of regional industrial clusters for zero-carbon innovation, and increasing the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund.

Plaid Cymru

• Pledge to ensure that Wales has full control over energy powers without any upper limit or conditions set by the UK Government.
• Oppose the development of new nuclear power stations.
• Expand community owned renewable energy generation across Wales.
• Push for changes to how the National Grid is structured, so that communities can benefit directly from local energy projects.
• Large scale pylon developments or solar scale developments should be considered in the context of their impact, and alternative methods for linking renewable energy to the grid.
• Impose a Social Tariff for Energy.
• Oppose new licenses for oil and gas.
• Maintain the ban on fracking.
• Devolve the responsibilities of Ofgem to regulate the design of whole-systems energy grids and markets which serve Wales. Establish a Welsh energy systems operator.
• Implement a a long-term plan for retrofitting existing properties.
• Insist on alternative methods to avoid the un-necessary destruction of beautiful countryside for large industrial scale solar farms and pylons.
• Support removing the tax on renewable liquid fuels, to make them more affordable for rural households who want to reduce their home heating emissions

Reform UK

• Scrap Net Zero and remove annual renewable energy subsidies.
• Start fast-track licenses of North Sea oil and gas.
• Grant shale gas licenses on test sites for two years. Then, enable major production when safety is proven, with local compensation schemes.
• Fast-track clean nuclear energy with small modular reactors built in Britain.
• Increase and incentivise UK lithium mining for electric batteries, combined cycle gas turbines, clean synthetic fuel, and clean coal mining.
• End the bans on petrol and diesel cars and ensure there is no legal requirements for manufacturers to sell electric cars.
• Fast-track planning and tax incentives for infrastructure projects, especially in coastal regeneration areas, Wales, the North, and the Midlands.

Scottish National Party

• Call for a statutory social tariff for energy for all who need it.
• Press for a significant cut in standing charges for anyone with a prepayment meter.
• Call for a combination of the Warm Home Discount and Energy Company Obligation to create a single, flexible fuel poverty scheme in Scotland.
• Introduce a fair energy pricing and rebate scheme for Highland and Islands residents.
• Demand a devolution of powers over energy regulation, pricing, and production to ensure that Scotland’s natural energy resources are used to best serve the needs of the Scottish people.
• Make changes to the electricity grid system, including reducing fees for Scottish producers to connect.
• Rule out new nuclear power plants in Scotland.
• Promote Scotland’s hydrogen export potential.
• Ban new coal licenses.
• Establish a Four Nations Climate Response Group.
• Remove VAT from on-street electric vehicle charging.
• Reform the planning system to deliver increases in community benefit.