Reform UK’s attack on renewables could wipe £92bn off economy

The anti-environmental policies of Reform UK could cost the country £92bn in lost revenue and wipe out more than 60,000 jobs by the end of the decade, according to analysis by the New Economics Foundation (NEF).

Reform UK has said it will scrap the government’s net zero target and impose taxes on the renewable energy sector in a move which researchers say is likely to cut off any further investment into the industry and make any new large scale renewable project become unviable.

New analysis published by NEF today shows that this would cost the economy up to £92bn, almost 3% of the UK’s entire GDP. This would destroy over 60,000 jobs in the wind and solar sectors alone by the end of this decade.

Chaitanya Kumar, head of economic and environmental policy at NEF, said:

“Reform UK’s attack on net zero is reckless, economically illiterate and dangerous for Britain’s future.

“These measures will prevent billions of pounds being invested into the UK economy, drive up bills and will cost tens of thousands of jobs, including in some of the most deprived parts of the country.

“The reality is net zero and investing in renewables is the greatest economic opportunity in this century. It will strengthen our economy, help cut bills for people across the country and help tackle the cost of living crisis.”

ENDS

Contact

James Rush – james.rush@neweconomics.org

Notes

The analysis is available to read in full on the NEF website.

In February, Reform UK said it would impose a range of taxes, including a windfall tax, on the renewable energy sector as part of its plans to scrap the net zero target. It also committed to scrapping what it calls renewable energy subsidies in its election manifesto last year.

For ease of analysis, we assume, illustratively, that Reform’s policies kick in from 2026 and our estimated impacts are to 2030. These figures are therefore meant to highlight the economic value and jobs that are foregone.

We estimated that Reform UK’s policies would effectively halt the construction of over 48 GW of large-scale wind and solar capacity by 2030. We use the government’s Major Power Producers (MPP) dataset to arrive at this estimate. Using official government capacity plans and widely cited estimates of economic value added per gigawatt — £2 – 3bn for offshore wind, £1.6bn for onshore, and £0.075bn for solar — we calculated that blocking this pipeline would deprive the UK economy of between £67 – 92bn in gross value added. That’s equivalent to nearly 3% of current UK GDP.

Our job loss estimate combines employment density data from industry reports and academic studies for each technology type. Offshore wind supports roughly 1.4 full-time jobs per MW, onshore wind between 1.7 – 2.0, and solar 0.57 per MW. Applying these ratios to the 48 GW of halted capacity, we estimate that over 60,000 direct and supply-chain jobs would be lost across the UK by 2030. This figure includes a surge of construction roles that would have been created over the next five years. It is a conservative estimate, excluding wider indirect and induced employment.

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