Ed Miliband

Let me develop my argument, because this point is crucial: we can tackle the affordability crisis that people face only by investing in the future. Our vision of what makes an economy succeed is different from that of Conservative Members. We believe that public investment crowds in and does not crowd out private investment; that the only route to economic success is a Government who support industry and workers with a proper industrial strategy; and that rights at work and strong trade unions are not an impediment to a good economy but an essential ingredient of it. Nowhere is that more apparent than in clean energy. Since the election, we have seen the largest public investment in home-grown clean energy in our history, leveraging private sector investment—that is the point—of more than £60 billion. We have the largest nuclear building programme in half a century, with Sizewell C, small modular reactors, and fusion at West Burton, which the Conservatives failed to deliver. There is funding for carbon capture in Teesside, Humberside, Scotland and the north-west, which the Conservatives failed to deliver, and we have the first new publicly owned energy company in more than 70 years in Great British Energy, which they opposed.