The Great British Energy Rip-off

How Westminster Labour is milking energy rich Scotland dry

If GB Energy were a car, the Westminster Labour government would be trying to sell it to us as a brand-new, top-of-the-range electric vehicle. In reality, it has turned out to be a cardboard box on wheels with a tin lid glued to the dashboard as a steering wheel. Worse still, they have billed the Scottish public for this ‘luxury’.

The latest slap in the face from this Labour administration sees energy-rich Scotland handed a pathetic 6% share of a new GB Energy fund.

To put that into perspective, Scotland produces a third of the UK’s total renewable output and a staggering 82% of its oil and gas.

Yet, out of a £30 million community energy investment, Scottish projects received a measly £1.8 million, while £28.2 million was dished out south of the border.

Astonishingly, Labour Minister Martin McCluskey – a Scottish Labour MP – boasted about this investment as if it were an act of grand benevolence; but handing a country that generates one-third of the UK’s green power a 6% crumbs-off-the-table gesture is like asking someone to cook a five-course banquet and rewarding them with a cheese slice in a stale bread sandwich.

As the full details of the People’s Power projects show the reality is is that Labour’s “flagship” energy company is fast becoming a grand exercise in wealth extraction by siphoning Scotland’s rich natural capital to bankroll projects elsewhere.

This latest GB Energy farce is not an isolated example – it is a pattern of systemic failure.

Labour’s entire pitch to Scottish voters ahead of the election was built on grand promises of green jobs, lower bills, and local investment.

Looking at the evidence, those pledges have collapsed faster than a house of cards in a wind tunnel.

We were promised that GB Energy would set up its grand headquarters in Aberdeen, delivering “1,000 or more” jobs to the North East.

Yet, figures revealed that over a third of GB Energy workers live outside Scotland; and of the entire workforce, less than a fifth of GB Energy staff work in Aberdeen, while 45% sit at desks in London. 

And the latest example of Labour’s dishonesty is that the same Minister above, Martin McCluskey, claimed on Times Radio that this promise was never to create “direct jobs” – a complete rewriting of history.

To top off the absurdity, whilst Andy Burnham’s government champions “Manchesterism”, the company’s Chairman also resides in Manchester alongside Burnham’s new “Number 10 North” setup.

Labour’s concept of a “Scottish headquarters” appears to be little more than a brass plaque on a wall, managed remotely by a Prime Minister and leadership team who think power on these islands starts and ends in England.

Meanwhile GB Energy and the Westminster government has repeatedly funnelled support into solar panels and nuclear projects south of the border.

While Scottish offshore wind projects have faced unfair transmission charges and Westminster blocks plans for the UK’s largest turbine factory in the Highlands, Labour managed to help find £7.5 million to finance Naked Energy solar technology for tennis at Wimbledon. 

The punters sipping Pimm’s on Murray Mound may be delighted, but energy workers in Scotland – facing 1,000 lost jobs a month due to Westminster’s fiscal regime – have been utterly betrayed.

When Labour’s Anas Sarwar claimed Labour’s green plans would create 70,000 jobs in Scotland, voters expected real action after fourteen years of disastrous Tory government.

Instead, Scotland got Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander quietly admiting during a parliamentary committee session that there was “never” an intention to have 1,000 direct GB Energy staff in Aberdeen.

The head of GB Energy himself even admitted on Sky News that meeting the original 1,000-job target could take up to two decades. Promising jobs today and delivering them in 20 years is like promising someone a warm winter coat and delivering it in the middle of a summer heatwave two decades later.

In 2024 election campaign speeches voters were told GB Energy would play a key part in cutting household bills by £300. Instead, energy bills have soared, leaving Scots in fuel poverty despite sitting on one of Europe’s greatest energy powerhouses.

If you need a metaphor for the sheer lack of substance behind GB Energy, look no further than its branding. The Westminster government managed to spend over £10,000 in legal fees after it turned out their initial logo was a stock image previously used by a US advertising firm.

Spending five figures of public money fixing a copy-and-paste logo design sums up the entire operation: an expensive shopfront with nothing behind the counter.

To ensure Scotland wasn’t short-changed, SNP MPs tabled an official amendment to the GB Energy Bill requiring all revenues generated from Scottish resources to be reinvested back into Scottish communities. Scottish Labour MPs voted it down.

Rather than protecting local wealth, Westminster treats Scotland’s natural energy as a private piggy bank to be smashed open whenever the Treasury needs cash.

The GB Energy story is a classic Westminster rerun: Big promises made before an election, followed by rapid backtracking, diverted funds, and job losses once in power.

Whether under previous Prime Ministers or now, under Andy Burnham, expecting Westminster to properly manage Scotland’s natural resources is like expecting a fox not only to guard the henhouse, but to sit on the eggs.

For decades, Scotland’s energy wealth has been treated as a cash cow to be milked dry to fund London’s priorities, while Scots are left facing some of the highest energy costs in Europe.

We have the resources, the skilled workforce, and the potential to be an international renewable powerhouse.

This ongoing GB Energy disaster proves beyond doubt that Westminster cannot be trusted with Scotland’s future.

The only way to ensure that Scotland’s vast energy wealth works for Scottish workers, Scottish businesses, and Scottish households is to take power out of the hands of distant Westminster politicians.

It’s time to make our own decisions and build a fairer, greener, and wealthier country with independence by putting control of Scotland’s power where it belongs – in Scotland’s hands.