Ed Miliband tells Scottish Labour conference in Glasgow they will create 'hundreds of thousands of jobs' in renewables

The shadow climate change and net zero secretary promises to make Scotland the ‘clean energy capital’ of the UK

Ed Miliband says Labour must win the general election for the future of Scotland, and has pledged to create hundreds of thousands of Scottish jobs in renewables.

The shadow climate change and net zero secretary was at the Scottish Labour Party conference in Glasgow on Friday, where he promised his party would deliver on renewable energy where the SNP and the Conservatives have not.

He said Labour’s plans to create a publicly-owned energy company called GB Energy, which they say will be headquartered in Scotland, would help those working in the oil and gas industry to get new jobs in renewable energy.

Shadow Climate Change and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband speaks at the Scottish Labour Party conference in Glasgow. Image: Andrew Milligan/Press Association.

Mr Miliband’s pledge comes in spite of Labour drawing intense criticism for ditching its pledge to spend £28bn a year on its green investment plan.

Pledges for Scotland made as part of Labour’s green plan had included £1bn to modernise Grangemouth, a share of £1.8bn for Tay and Moray ports, and 50,000 clean power jobs north of the border – more than any other part of the UK.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has argued on the U-turn pledge that large numbers "mean very little to the electorate".

Speaking during a debate on ‘delivering a fairer, greener Scotland’, Mr Miliband said: “The Tories say we don’t want public ownership of our energy system, but we already have public ownership – it’s just foreign public ownership.

“Forty-five per cent of our offshore wind is owned by foreign governments and I say if it’s good enough for Norway, if it’s good enough for Denmark, if it’s good enough for France, if it’s good enough for Sweden, then it’s good enough for Scotland.

“We will have a national wealth fund that will invest in carbon capture in Scotland, in steel, in electric battery factories, in ports and in hydrogen.” He said all of these moves would make Scotland the “clean energy capital of the UK”.

Mr Miliband added: “We will create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the industries that can power the future – hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, floating offshore wind. We will succeed where the SNP and the Tories have failed.”

This comes only hours after Labour overturned two huge Conservative majorities to win the English by-elections in Wellingborough and Kingswood.

The party overcame a majority of more than 18,500 votes to take Wellingborough, which is a swing of 28.5 per cent – the second biggest from the Conservatives to Labour in any post-war by-election.

Meanwhile the Conservatives lost their majority of more than 11,000 with a swing of 16.5 per cent to Labour in Kingswood.

Mr Miliband, who led the party during the 2015 general election, congratulated the two new MPs on winning the by-elections, and said the results showed Labour was back under leader Sir Keir Starmer.

He said: “The opinion polls are good. Anas Sarwar has done an amazing job to turn things around in Scotland, and Keir has done an amazing job to turn things around in the UK.

“But no one has voted in the general election yet. We have a massive agenda here to change Scotland and the UK. This is an election we have got to win for the future of Scotland”