Caroline Flint has resigned as shadow energy secretary after four years paving the way for Lisa Nandy to fill her shoes.
Despite controversy that Flint had left due to Jeremy Corbyn’s appointment as party leader – several other cabinet members resigned in protest – she claims her return to the back benches was a move to enable her to “best support the Labour party”.
Flint stated:
“I have greatly enjoyed campaigning for the last four years for fair energy bills, to end the scandal of cold homes and for decisive action on climate change, so this was a hard decision to make.
“Returning to the backbenches will also allow me to spend more time helping Labour reach out to those voters who turned away from us, but who share many of our values. I hope this work will be helpful to Jeremy, the Shadow Cabinet and the Labour Party as we rebuild over the next five years.”
Nandy may struggle to live up to Flint, being relatively inexperienced and having never held formal energy responsibilities. She did however join the parliamentary campaign in support of the ‘End the Big Six Energy Fix’ campaign in May 2012.
She stated:
‘It is appalling that energy companies are allowed to rake in profits when more than 5.5 million households have been hit by fuel poverty which have resulted in an estimated 3,000 premature winter deaths.”
Looks like she’ll be on board with plans to renationalise the energy industry then. She is also an advocate for clean energy receiving support already from the renewable energy industry.
Urban Wind CEO Paul McCullagh said:
“We welcome the appointment of Lisa Nandy as a young and ambitious minister to the role of shadow energy secretary. We hope she can deliver the vigour and drive to push forward Jeremy Corbyn’s ambitious renewable energy policies, and to hold the government to account for its woeful failure to support the renewable energy sector.
Amber Rudd has repeatedly failed to demonstrate any kind of green credentials, despite her talk of being dedicated to reducing the UK’s carbon emissions ahead of the UN Climate Conference in Paris later this year. The government have completely ignored the opinions of the general public by reducing support for renewable energy and attempting to drive forward fracking despite widespread, vocal opposition. Hopefully a strong voice in opposition can emerge to argue for the renewable energy solutions that the public are so obviously in favour of.”
Nandy’s appointment seems promising then but we’re dubious that the Labour party have compromised on experience and knowledge of the energy sector in place of a pretty face that will simply politicise energy.
What we really need is someone that understands the fundamental need for network improvement and greater generation capacity to ensure UK energy security, not a strategist that it unlikely to follow through on out of reach promises. Dare I mention renationalisation again…
It seems the Labour party would rather win short-term political capital than focus on the real issues at hand. Nevertheless it looks like Rudd might have some opposition to deal with.
We suspect a swift turn around from the government with regard to renewable energy if they want to claw back public support.
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