Voters have “clear limits” on backing climate policies, the More in Common analysis argued, and would not support “significantly higher bills or taxes” to fund the green transition. The Labour government’s failure to bring energy bills under control, after promising before the election to cut them by up to £300 a year, has landed them in trouble.
The Lib Dems are trying to reassure nervous voters.
Party leader Ed Davey recently unveiled plans to break the link between gas prices and electricity costs, which he said will bring down bills and encourage people to switch from boilers to climate-friendly heat pumps. “People aren’t seeing the benefit of cheap renewable power,” he said.
They have also pledged to move clean energy generation off lucrative subsidy deals struck with developers years ago and onto new deals in line with more recent subsidies. The Lib Dems claim this move could knock £200 a year off bills.
Davey used a speech Wednesday to offer red meat to would-be Lib Dem voters, with a pledge to take on net-zero skeptics, including populists Reform UK. Going green is “a Liberal Democrat energy policy in service of the British people. Not a Nigel Farage energy policy in service of Vladimir Putin,” Davey argued.
Heylings, meanwhile, brushed off the not-in-my-back-yard tag, used by those who claim Lib Dems talk a good game on climate and the environment while working to block anything which might upset local voters.
“I’m not anti-house building. I’m not NIMBY,” she said. “I’ve been working with developers on this. You can do both house-building and nature recovery. You can do high environmental standards and they can still be affordable.”
Labour veteran Diane Abbott once called opting for the Lib Dems the “dustbin” vote. The party has between now and 2029 to persuade voters they are a lot cleaner and greener than that.