New polling from Survation, commissioned by Common Wealth finds 67 per cent of the public and 76 per cent of Members of Parliament surveyed think GB Energy needs to lower bills to be a success.
[.fig]Two Thirds of Voters and Three Quarters of MPs Think GB Energy Needs to Lower Bills to be a Success[.fig]
[.notes]Note: Values do not sum to 100 due to rounding.[.notes]
However, the polling also finds the wider public are less optimistic that GB Energy will ultimately reduce energy bills. Just 31 per cent of voters think GB Energy will lower bills, compared to 61 per cent of MPs. Next week’s budget represents the first major test for the Labour government to confront cynicism and show ambition in delivering the investment needed to make GB Energy a success.
[.fig]Voters are More Sceptical than MPs that GB Energy Will Lower Bills[.fig]
Those who voted Labour in the 2024 General Election are the most likely to believe it will lower bills (43 per cent).
[.fig][.fig-title]Among the Public, Labour GE24 Voters are the Most Likely to Believe GB Energy will Lower Bills[.fig-title][.fig-subtitle]General public by GE24 vote[.fig-subtitle][.fig]
Given the gap between public expectations of GB Energy and public opinion on whether it will cut bills, the new public energy company must be genuinely ambitious in order to meet voters’ expectations. This should include a focus on reducing energy bills and better distributing the costs — to protect those on low incomes, including by GB Energy supplying energy directly to households.
Ahead of next week’s budget, we are calling for GB Energy to be ambitious enough to not only meet but exceed public expectations and live up to its promise as one of Labour’s six key “steps for change” in its election manifesto.
An important first step is ensuring that GB Energy’s access to capital investment is not constrained by the Government’s fiscal rules and therefore it should be excluded from the state’s balance sheet, as is the case with many other public energy developers across Europe.
Common Wealth is also calling for GB Energy to be given more public investment and borrowing powers – as have publicly-owned energy companies in other countries in Europe such as EDF in France and Vattenfall in Sweden – to deliver renewable energy quicker, cheaper, and more fairly.
Common Wealth first proposed a publicly owned clean energy company, like GB Energy, in 2022, ahead of the policy being unveiled at Labour Party conference.
In August 2024, Common Wealth set out a vision for how GB Energy could offer a “retail arm”, to allow the publicly owned company to supply energy directly to households. This would allow for the benefits to be passed on directly to customers.
[.quote][.quote-text]To keep the public on side, the government needs to focus on the tangible benefits of homegrown and secure clean power. The way forward is to deliver GB Energy with real ambition and investment, and use it to lower and more fairly spread energy costs.[.quote-text][.quotee]Adam Khan, Principal Analyst at Common Wealth[.quotee][.quote]
[.quote][.quote-text]Political consent for a rapid energy transition rests on delivering affordability. Labour voters believe GB Energy could be a vehicle for lower bills. But translating clean power into cheaper energy will require a step change in investment and delivery of a social tariff pricing system, under which low and middle income households would pay less.[.quote-text][.quotee]Mathew Lawrence, Director of Common Wealth[.quotee][.quote]
Image credit: Melanie Brusseler
