Labour will fight Tories on economic growth

In its first year of government, Keir Starmer said that Labour will launch Great British Energy, a publicly owned energy company run on clean UK power, the party will fight the Tories on economic growth. Starmer said that millions of people paid their bills to an energy company owned by France, and that the largest onshore wind farm in Wales was owned by Sweden.

Starmer said earlier in his speech that the Conservatives had left the UK economy at the mercy of Russia's war in Ukraine.

I will never accept that the war is an excuse for how unprepared Britain was to deal with the fallout. The war didn't ban onshore wind, the war didn't scrap home insulation, the war didn't stall British nuclear energy. The Tories did that. The Labour leader spoke out against the economic plan announced by Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng last week, which cut taxes, including abolishing the top rate of tax. Starmer said that what we have seen in the past few days has no precedent but was just one of a number of problems facing the country.

He said the Tories had lost control of the British economy not for you, not for working people, and for tax cuts for the richest 1% of society. Don't forgive. The only way to stop this is with a Labour government. He said that the dividing lines with the Conservatives had clearly been drawn: Politics is about choices. Are the oil and gas companies making huge profits from higher prices?

Our choice is to put the profits to work, and that is why our choice is the Labour choice. This party is always on the side of working people in times of crisis. The Labour leader said he wanted to make the UK a growth superpower through Labour's green prosperity plan, which he said would create 1 m new jobs in towns and cities, raise living standards and tackle the climate crisis.

He said that Britain should be ambitious to be at the forefront of the green technological revolution. Some nation is going to lead the world in offshore wind. Why not this one? Some nation will win the race for electric vehicles. Why not us? The nation will be the first to harness new hydrogen power. He said that a new boost to skills and apprenticeships would be needed to work the biggest partnership between government, business and communities this country has ever seen. He said that Labour would set a new target of 70% home ownership with the reform of buy-to-let and helping buyers on to the housing ladder with mortgage guarantees.

Labour would get Britain out of this cycle of crisis with a fresh start, a new set of priorities and a new way of governance. The Labour leader said the party would be ready for government but warned against complacency. We need to be prepared, disciplined, focused, because as in 1945, 1964 and 1997, this is a Labour moment.

It's true. Say it loud and believe it.