Heat on Starmer and Reeves as they go cold on £28bn green agenda

SIR Keir Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves are under attack from within Labour circles as they turn increasingly chilly towards the party’s flagship environmental policy in an election year.

- Jitendra Joshi and Rachael Burford

The opposition leadership has gone from a firm promise in 2021 to invest £28 billion a year on a “Green Prosperity Plan”, via increased borrowing, to merely an “ambition” to come up with the money in the second half of the next Parliament, subject to fiscal rules.

But given the scale of the climate crisis, and the need to retool the UK economy with new and low-carbon energy, transport and industry, critics say Sir Keir is failing a test of leadership and playing into Conservative attacks on his alleged lack of principle.

Labour MP Barry Gardiner, a former energy and climate change secretary, said the party’s leadership was being short-sighted. “The green investment plan is going to happen. It has to happen,” he told the Standard.

“All I know is that if you want to sustainably grow the economy, you have to have a Green Prosperity Plan.