Labour will “democratise” not “nationalise” Britain’s energy sector, says shadow secretary Lisa Nandy

Jeremy Corbyn's newly-appointed shadow energy secretary has said that Labour wants to "put people back in charge" of Britain's energy supply.

 

In a speech to the Labour party annual conference in Brighton this morning, Lisa Nandy said she would "democratise" rather than "nationalise" the energy market.

 

"Jeremy and I don’t want to nationalise energy," she said. "We want to do something far more radical. We want to democratise it."

 

Corbyn has previously indicated that he would like the government to have a “controlling interest” in the so-called big six energy companies: British Gas, SSE, E.ON, RWE Npower, Scottish Power and EDF.

 

In her speech this morning, however, Nandy did not rule out public ownership of energy providers. Instead, she suggested putting local authorities, rather than the national government, in charge to "effectively bypass the big six entirely".

 

She said: "There should be nothing to stop every community in this country owning its own clean energy power station."

 

"Across the country schools are already taking the initiative and going solar," she added. "Generating power and heat for their own use."