New Climate APPG Chair Says Government Must Learn From "Poor" Energy Transitions Like Margaret Thatcher's Mine Closures

Labour MP and new chair of the Climate All-Party Parliamentary Group Luke Murphy has said the Government must avoid the mistakes of past "unjust" energy transitions such as Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher's closure of the mines in the 1980s.

Murphy, who is the newly elected MP for Basingstoke, told PoliticsHome that he wanted his APPG to focus on advocating for a "just" transition to green renewable energy across the UK that would "build public support and bring people with us".

“In the UK, we've actually seen too many examples of poor transitions and unjust transitions, and that's the thing that we've got to move away from," he said.

"Over the last 14 years we haven't seen enough of that focus on involvement of workers. And that's also what we saw through the 1980s in the closure of the mines and the impact that that had on communities."

Central to Labour's energy policy is the proposed publicly owned energy investment company GB Energy, that will be headquartered in Scotland. Before the election, Keir Starmer claimed that the company would create jobs that would "last for decades”.

Murphy argued that it was vital that the Government "get this right" and learn from past mistakes by previous governments.

"Not just from a moral point of view, but there is actually a huge opportunity to be grasped here in the North Sea and other carbon intensive industries, there's a huge green growth opportunity to be gained as well as long as we take people with us," he said.

"GB Energy is possibly one of our most popular policies and that is because people recognise that it offers a stake in the success of the transition."

He said while there had been some "surprising" success in onshore and offshire wind and reducing emissions in recent