Yorkshire can profit if green growth investment is prioritised: Beckie Hart

With that kind of money on the table, it’s hard to argue that the government is failing to put its money where its mouth is to deliver on its Clean Power mission.

For those of us working to accelerate the UK’s net zero transition, this is a seismic market shake-up – one that, in the long-term, can offer the opportunity to catalyse green investment, improve our energy resilience, reduce costs and carbon emissions.

By making clean energy its engine of growth, we estimate that in 2030 the UK could generate 2.4 per cent GDP growth from green industries alone.

That’s equivalent to an extra £57bn for our strained public finances.

Yet there is a fine balance between achieving these objectives in a way that complements rather than displaces private sector activity.

This will require partnership between the public and private sectors not seen for a generation.

For a start, the National Wealth Fund and Great British Energy need to decide how they’re different, and how much risk they’re willing to bear.

If these are going to be genuinely additive and impactful, they need to focus on projects that can’t currently find support in the commercial market.

That might be because locations for renewable technologies are not optimal for development – prohibitively pushing up capital costs. It might be because adequate transmission infrastructure is not yet in place – delaying the payback of technology deployment.

Second, these new investment vehicles need to consider how their remits differ to existing development financers like the UK Infrastructure Bank and British Business Bank – and make scale-up support an area of focus. Great innovations need great investment to unlock their payback.

Last up, the government needs to ensure that our policy environment complements new investment vehicles. We know that Labour did a lot of thinking on this ahead of the election, and it’s encouraging to see that already translate into smart proposals to change infrastructure planning. But it can go further.

Scrutinising how tax and regulation are inhibiting project delivery in those supply chains receiving investment is sound governance – making sure we maximise the impact of every pound spent.

There’s little debate that prioritising green growth is both the right thing to do, and highly lucrative for UK plc and especially for Yorkshire and the Humber.

Last year, the UK’s green economy grew by nine per cent during the period that the rest of the economy fell into technical recession.

Ultimately, it’s this growth that’ll accelerate our path to net zero and continue to bring high-productivity jobs to our region.

With a slew of announcements already unveiled, Labour has set an ambitious path for green growth and done so at an encouraging pace. Now, it’s all about delivery and bringing the policy certainty businesses need to accelerate investment.

Get it right, and Yorkshire and the Humber profits. Falter now, and we will rue missing out on the prize of a lifetime.

Beckie Hart is CBI regional director for Yorkshire and Humber