New UK Government - Sustainability priorities and policies

At a glance:
 

• Sustainability was a core component of the Labour Party’s election campaign. After the Party formed the UK’s new Government, it has now started to translate its campaign proposals into government sustainability priorities and policies.
• The Government’s new sustainability initiatives focus predominately on developing the supply of net zero technologies, accelerating investments for renewable energy, streamlining the delivery of infrastructure, increase support for sustainable aviation fuel and improving water quality.
• By acting swiftly, the Government is placing a renewed focus on sustainability and, in doing so, aiming to provide certainty in many of these policy areas for businesses. A detailed and coherent cross-sector plan will be essential to kickstart action and ensure momentum.
• In this note, we provide an overview of what the new Government has said about its sustainability policies and priorities. We summarise the new legislative intentions announced in the King’s Speech as well as policy action taken to date. We conclude by providing an overview of the Labour Party’s pre-election policy proposals and the current implementation status of each policy.
  
  

On 5 July 2024, the Labour Party formed the UK’s new Government.

Sustainability was a core component of Labour’s election campaign. In its manifesto, it recognised that “the climate and nature-crisis is the greatest long-term global challenge” and set the accelerated rollout of clean energy as one of its top two “missions”, alongside economic growth.

The new Government has now started to translate its campaign proposals into government priorities and policies, positioning sustainability as a lever for achieving the Government’s growth agenda. Its sustainability initiatives are predominately focused on developing the rollout of net zero technologies, accelerating investments for renewable energy, streamlining the delivery of infrastructure, increasing support for sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) and improving water quality.

By acting swiftly, the Government is placing a renewed focus on sustainability and in doing so, aiming to provide certainty in many of these policy areas for businesses. Some of its policy ambitions stand out, most notably its plan to decarbonise the energy grid by 2030 since the UK is the only major country with this target. The next year will therefore be pivotal for the Government in terms of providing a detailed action plan to initiate the necessary work and ensure momentum.

New legislative initiatives

In the King’s Speech on 17 July and the supporting documents, the Government confirmed it intends to introduce the following pieces of legislation in this Parliamentary session:

• Great British Energy Bill to set-up Great British Energy, a publicly-owned clean power company headquartered in Scotland that will help accelerate renewable energy and offshore wind.
• Sustainable Aviation Fuel (Revenue Support Mechanism) Bill to increase support for SAF production.
• Water (Special Measures) Bill to improve water quality by strengthening the powers of the water regulator to impose punitive measures on water companies.
• National Wealth Fund Bill to create a £7.3 billion capitalised fund to spread investment across green and growth industries (green hydrogen, green steel, industrial decarbonisation, gigafactories and ports). With this additional capital, the Government seeks to crowd in a further £20 billion from private capital into priority sectors.
• Crown Estate Bill, granting the Crown Estate wider investment powers and the ability to borrow so that it can rapidly invest in new infrastructure projects such as offshore wind.
• Planning and Infrastructure Bill to streamline the delivery process for critical infrastructure, including accelerating upgrades to the national grid and boosting renewable energy.
   

Progress to date
 

The Government has started to progress work in these initiatives. On 25 July, it introduced the GB Energy Bill and Crown Estate Bill to Parliament. This was after it announced that Great British Energy and the Crown Estate will partner to deliver new offshore wind developments on Crown Estate land.

The Government also took swift action in other policy areas in its first month in power, highlighting how legislative activity is not required to progress certain policies. This includes lifting the previous Government’s de facto ban on onshore wind, creating an Onshore Wind Industry Taskforce and appointing Chris Stark (former Chief Executive of the Climate Change Committee) to lead Mission Control to coordinate action to decarbonise the energy grid by 2030.

Meanwhile, other announcements have signalled the Government will now focus on developing and implementing policies that Labour had previously provided limited detail of in its election campaign. On 31 July the Government revealed it will develop a new plan to meet the targets set out in the Environment Act by the end of 2024. The plan will set out action on reducing waste, planting more trees, improving air quality and halting the decline in species by 2030.