Andy Burnham plans to unveil a state‑run grid company that will boost competition, accelerate connections and tackle the UK’s energy cost crisis.
At the Labour Party conference in Liverpool on Tuesday, leader Andy Burnham is set to introduce a bold new institution – the Great British Grid (GB Grid). The announcement will frame the body as the first major step toward expanding public control over the nation’s utilities, a theme that dominated Burnham’s summer messaging.
In his opening remarks, Burnham promises an “honest conversation” about the “cost crisis” that has been “crippling for businesses” and outlines a ten-year target to bring UK energy prices in line with the rest of Europe.
Great British Grid and its competitive mandate
The proposed entity will be fully owned by the state and will compete directly with the three private transmission owners that currently run Britain’s power network. By entering the market, GB Grid aims to stimulate competition for connection projects, thereby speeding up the link between new renewable generators and end-users.
Burnham is expected to stress that faster connections are essential to easing the “cost crisis” and that public investment can act as a catalyst for private spending.
Funding sources and the scale of required investment
Labour says the new body will be financed from the existing budget of GB Energy the public green-investment firm created last year and based in Aberdeen. The transmission network will need extensive rewiring as generation shifts from large fossil-fuel stations to offshore wind farms and other remote renewable sites. Ofgem has estimated that around £70bn must be injected into the grid between 2025 and 2031 – a figure that quadruples current annual spending.
In a recent National Audit Office report, the backlog of projects waiting for connection was described as having “grown significantly“, with delays also on the rise. To address this, GB Grid will not only invest in its own projects but also help firms that are waiting to connect by co-investing or providing financing support.
Private sector role and reactions
While the public body will compete with existing owners, it will still work alongside them. Matthew Lawrence founder of the think-tank Common Wealth and former adviser to Burnham, highlighted that the UK is “unusual in that it has a wholly privatised grid” – a structure he claims has caused “decades of sluggish development and chronic underinvestment”. Lawrence added that Tuesday’s announcement “seems to have fixed that by bringing in public investment into new parts of the grid”.
Dhara Vyas chief executive of Energy UK welcomed the move but cautioned that “the bulk of this will be private investment“. She noted that transmission owners alone are planning to spend £90bn over the next five years on the “highway of pylons” that moves electricity from source to homes and businesses.
Political backdrop and upcoming challenges
The GB Grid launch comes as the party prepares for a difficult budget at the end of next month, a period when rising borrowing costs are tightening fiscal space. Burnham also intends to reveal financing details for his pledge to provide free social-care services across England. The pledge must be presented before voters ahead of the next general election, which legally must occur by August 2029 with the new grid system slated to start rolling out from 2030.
Speculation has arisen about a possible review of the “triple lock” pension uprating mechanism – the policy that raises state pensions by the highest of 2.5%, inflation, or average wage growth. Although Downing Street declined to confirm any review, John Healey warned that the manifesto will only be set at the appropriate time. Sharon Graham general secretary of the Unite union, warned that discarding the triple lock would be “electoral suicide”.
Burnham is expected to close his speech by contrasting a typical “tub-thumping” address with a more measured, patriotic tone, emphasizing that “This is what more public control can do“. The
