The Shadow Minister for Energy and Climate Change, Julie Elliott MP, has highlighted Labour’s commitment to support job creation in the fast-growing renewable energy sector, speaking at RenewableUK’s annual conference in Birmingham.
Elliott said: “long term sustainable economic growth is built on innovation, green jobs and a low carbon economy”.
She emphasised the need for “a rebalanced economy, supporting growth in our regions and encouraging manufacturing. We must look at areas that could become hubs for new green industries. There are areas in the country, many of them old manufacturing centres like Yorkshire and Humberside or the North East, which possess exciting infrastructure and skills that can be adapted to support low carbon technologies”.
Her comments were welcomed by RenewableUK’s Director of Public Affairs, Jennifer Webber, who said: “The Shadow Minister highlighted the scale of the opportunity we have within our grasp.” She believes that with political support UK can create over 70,000 direct and indirect jobs in the wind, wave and tidal power industries by 2023.
Press release, November 7, 2013