Tugendhat: Miliband must ditch ‘Stalinist’ net zero approach

Ed Miliband must drop his “Stalinist” approach to net zero for Britain to remain safe, Tom Tugendhat has said.

The Conservative former security minister will warn on Monday that Mr Miliband’s focus on “clean” power is undermining national security by preventing the UK from producing steel, aluminium and critical minerals.

In a speech to the Conservative Environment Network, Mr Tugendhat will compare the Government’s approach to Josef Stalin’s “socialism in one country” plan in the 1920s, when the communist leader argued for ideological purity in the Soviet Union.

Mr Miliband has clashed with Sir Keir Starmer over his net zero budget in recent weeks, rejecting calls for his funding to be reallocated to the Ministry of Defence.

Sir Keir is now set to water down rules mandating the sale of electric vehicles after businesses and unions expressed concerns about job losses.

In his speech, Mr Tugendhat will say that growth, security and environmentalism have been undermined by Labour’s pursuit of net zero emissions by 2050.

Opponents of the policy, including the Conservatives, argue that Mr Miliband’s focus on renewables and resistance to drilling in the North Sea have made it more expensive to produce goods in Britain.

Mr Tugendhat will say: “You cannot rebuild a sovereign defence industrial base on imported energy bought at four times the price your competitors pay.

“Sovereign steel, sovereign aluminium and the processing of the critical minerals a modern military depends on all rest on the same foundations – electric arc furnaces, low-carbon hydrogen and domestic refining.

“Re-shoring our strategic industries and cheapening our industrial power are the same task, and cleaner and more secure are both impossible at scale without cheap, clean power.”

Mr Miliband is leading Cabinet opposition to the opening of the Jackdaw and Rosebank oil and gas fields in the North Sea, which would expand Britain’s energy production.

Labour was elected on a promise to reduce household energy bills by £300 a year, but that goal now seems unachievable, with conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East pushing up the cost of imported oil and gas.

Meanwhile, green levies on bills to fund the development of new renewable schemes have increased the burden on households further.

Ofgem’s energy price cap, representing the average cost of dual-fuel bills in the UK, will be almost £300 higher from July than when Labour took office.

Mr Tugendhat will say: “The Government has gone down a road that reminds me of Stalin’s famous line about ‘socialism in one country’, and every home in the country is feeling the rising energy prices that are closing factories and pushing business overseas.”

He will add that the UK has “worshipped penury, scarcity and refusal” and “pretended it was virtue”.

The former security minister will argue: “We have worn hair shirts and failed to develop the new technologies that can replace the old, carbon-hungry industries because we have put the cost of energy and the cost of transition out of reach.”

Mr Tugendhat will call for the Government to shun regulators that block key infrastructure developments, including renewable energy sources such as nuclear and offshore wind.

He will also take aim at Ofgem, the Environment Agency and Natural England, which he says “quietly bias” decisions against new development.

“Even with renewables, we demand less, not more,” he will say. “The de facto ban on new onshore wind lasted the better part of a decade and, even today, our nuclear industry struggles to achieve the speed needed to take off.

“We haven’t chosen to switch from carbon to renewables – we’ve chosen to reject power. That’s a remarkable step backwards and, ironically, away from a carbon-free future.”

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