Now Keir Starmer is spending disabled people’s support money on corporate welfare for oil companies

The Keir Starmer-led government is looking to hand public finances to the entire UK oil industry, effectively diverting disabled people’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) support money to profiteering fossil fuel companies.

Stop disabled people’s DWP support, fund climate destruction

The disability welfare cuts passed on 1 June and the austerity will still impact future claimants of the health element of Universal Credit – and potentially PIP claimants, too.

Energy secretary Ed Miliband and the government are planning to make fossil fuel corporations eligible for the Energy-Intensive Industries Compensation Scheme. The scheme is already a worrying prospect for the climate crisis. It provides support for companies that use a lot of energy and face carbon offsetting costs, like manufacturing. And it does so through the EII support levy, which charges electricity providers (41% of which are renewable) to fund the scheme.

Of course, fossil fuels need to be maintained while we transition to renewables. But that only applies if the Labour government rolls out a publicly owned Green New Deal, which they abandoned. So Labour are planning to hand disabled people’s support funds to the climate-destroying fossil fuel industry. And without bringing in renewable energy.

This is not in the form of a loan or an equity stake in the company, but corporate welfare. That’s despite the oil and gas industry making £3.2bn in profits in 2024 from UK production.

Like with austerity, foreign policy and privatisation, the corporate subsidies – via DWP benefit cuts – would be a Labour continuation of the Tory agenda. From 2015-2023, fossil fuels received £20bn more support from the government than renewables.

Green New Deal?

An issue that triggered the government looking to subsidise the oil industry is the loss of jobs facing the Prax Lindsey site in Lincolnshire. Up to 620 jobs could be lost. But that is nothing compared to a Green New Deal. One report estimates that through an investment of £69bn the government could create 1.2m green jobs in just the first two years.

A Green New Deal would also be cheaper. In 2023, the average price per unit of electricity in the UK was £127 per MWh. A renewable energy system could deliver the same at costs as low as £55 per MWh. Over time, a Green New Deal would pay for itself.

More benefits still could be achieved through public ownership of the renewable system, removing profit from the everyday essential of energy. This would also create a national, for public good monopoly that could further bring down prices through larger scale purchasing of materials. Cheaper energy would help control inflation through shielding people from volatile international gas markets. And it would keep prices low for all people and businesses. On top of that, government borrowing costs for investment are much cheaper than for the private sector.

Instead, Labour is handing DWP funding for disabled people to the fossil fuel industry. Shame.

Featured image via the Canary