Burnham to launch public grid investment body as part of new energy cost pledge

Prime Minister Andy Burnham is set to unveil a new publicly owned company designed to speed up Britain’s electricity grid connections in his first party conference speech as Labour leader, part of a broader pledge to bring UK energy costs in line with other European countries within a decade.

Burnham will tell Labour activists gathered in Liverpool on Tuesday that the new body, branded Great British Grid, aims to accelerate grid connection projects by increasing competition among the companies that build them. He is expected to frame the announcement as the first major step toward his broader ambition of expanding public control over Britain’s utilities, a theme he placed at the center of his leadership pitch earlier this year. According to details shared ahead of the speech, Burnham will argue that faster grid connections could help address what he calls a cost crisis in energy that has proven damaging for businesses across the country.

The government has not yet released full operational details of the new body, but Labour officials said it will invest in and compete for transmission connection projects alongside the three private companies that currently own and manage Britain’s grid infrastructure. The party also said the new body would make it easier for firms awaiting grid connections to finance that infrastructure themselves, with Great British Grid potentially co-investing in projects alongside private developers. Funding for the initiative will come from within the existing budget of GB Energy, the publicly owned green investment company Labour established last year and which is now headquartered in Aberdeen.

The push comes as Britain’s aging transmission network faces mounting strain from the shift away from large fossil fuel power stations toward more remote renewable energy sites, such as offshore wind farms, a transition that will require extensive rewiring of the grid in the coming years. Energy regulator Ofgem has estimated that seventy billion pounds in grid investment will be needed between 2025 and 2031, roughly four times the current rate of spending. A National Audit Office report published earlier this month warned that the backlog of projects waiting to connect to the grid has grown significantly, with delays continuing to worsen.

In his speech, Burnham is expected to say that Great British Grid will work alongside the private sector and existing network companies to reform what he calls a broken energy market, arguing that increased competition will drive down costs and speed up delivery so businesses can connect faster and grow more quickly. He plans to frame the initiative as a direct demonstration of what greater public control can achieve.

Burnham is expected to promise what he calls bold and honest leadership throughout his address, telling delegates he initially considered giving what he described as the usual tub thumping conference speech before deciding that something different was needed. He has made hope the central message of Labour’s four day conference gathering, which comes ahead of a difficult budget at the end of next month, one further complicated by recent increases in the cost of UK government borrowing. Ahead of Tuesday’s speech, Burnham has also promised to detail how the government intends to fund his plan to provide free social care to everyone in England, a policy he wants to put before voters at the next general election, which must legally take place by August 2029, with implementation targeted to begin from 2030.

Speculation has grown that Burnham may use funding pressure from the social care plan to question the long term sustainability of the pension triple lock, the policy under which state pension payments rise annually by whichever is highest among 2.5 percent, inflation, or average wage growth. The mechanism is projected to add significantly to the cost of pension payments in future years as Britain’s population continues aging. Downing Street has declined to say whether a formal review of the triple lock is under consideration, though ministers maintain that Labour’s manifesto commitment to preserve the policy for the duration of the current parliament still stands. Chancellor John Healey declined Monday to guarantee the triple lock would appear in Labour’s manifesto for the next general election, telling a BBC radio programme that the manifesto would be written closer to the time rather than committed to now. Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, warned preemptively that scrapping the triple lock would amount to electoral suicide for the party.

With the grid investment announcement positioned as the centerpiece of Tuesday’s speech, Burnham’s broader conference message appears aimed at pairing a concrete infrastructure commitment with the harder, unresolved questions around social care funding and pension policy that his government will need to address in the budget expected at the end of next month.