Labour’s manifesto pledge on green energy has been dealt a blow by the Chancellor.

Reported in the The Telegraph (not traditionally a Labour fan) DESNZ has been told that it should grant funding only for green energy projects that might bring down bills and can easily be connected to the National Grid.

As a result, high capital projects, such as new offshore wind farms, will be harder to develop, and Labour’s promise of 95 per cent green electricity by 2030 virtually impossible to meet.

With Miliband out of DESNZ, it appears a more pragmatic approach is being adopted, especially as the backlog in connection has become a major bottleneck for projects and bad publicity around “wasted wind” payments.

Now for the political bit: This all places the current PM in a difficult position. Unelected as even an MP at the last election, he is under pressure to maintain the 2024 manifesto, otherwise that might raise the need for an election to have a mandate if significant changes were made, yet he has said that he does not agree with all of it.

And yet events are overtaking him.

Recently Martin McClusky, Under-Secretary of State in DESNZ hinted that CCUS budgets might be cut, and John Healey has said that new projects will only be built when they lower bills.

The sound you can hear is goalposts being moved, from ‘pledge’ to ‘target’ to ‘aspiration’.

For now, the Government is saying it will be sticking to is stated commitments, but something, somewhere, is likely to give.

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