The Labour Party has announced plans to make “the most significant investment in Britain’s ports in a generation” today, promising £1.8bn for the sector should it win power in the next general election, predicted to take place this year.

Green boost

The pledge comes as part of Labour’s ‘Green Prosperity Plan’, which it argues will help draw billions in private sector investment into the UK’s energy industry and create 650,000 new jobs. The party has also pledged to impose a “proper windfall tax” on oil and gas firms to pay for the plan, which will include renewed government and private investment in industries including “nuclear, steel, automotive and construction”.

Setting out how the port investment fits into the party’s broader industrial strategy, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said:

“The legacy of fourteen years of Conservative rule is Britain’s industrial strength reduced to the rubble and rust of closed-down factories. They have let good jobs go overseas and done nothing about it – and every community has paid the price.

“A Labour government will reindustrialise Britain – from the biggest investment in our ports in a generation, to a British Jobs Bonus to crowd billions of investment into our industrial heartlands and coastal communities.”

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves added that ports are “critical hubs for our nation”, noting that they provide “over 90% of trade into the country”. Ports, she said, “will be at the centre of Labour’s plans to make Britain a clean energy superpower”. Shadow energy secretary Ed Miliband also called for “flourishing national ports” in his response to the announcement.

Dialled down

The announcement comes after the party scaled back its proposed plans for green investment
earlier this year.

Previous proposals for £28bn of investment under the Green Prosperity Plan were almost halved to £15bn in an announcement by the party in February. Starmer argued that rising interest rates had forced a rethink since the initial pledge was made in 2021.

The party’s caution is also thrown into new relief by the publication of the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) Fiscal Monitor, which urged the UK’s government to make a more concerted effort to curb public debt.

The FT reports that the IMF designated the UK as one of four economies that “critically need to take policy action to address fundamental imbalances between spending and revenues”, alongside the US, Italy and China. The IMF also predicted that the UK could reach a net debt to GDP ratio of 98% by 2030, up from the current figure of 92%.