Chancellor Rachel Reeves has stated that communities may need to accept new energy projects for economic stability, despite local opposition.
This comment was made during a TV interview where she addressed permissions granted by Energy Security Secretary Ed Miliband, including a large solar farm on the Cambridgeshire/Suffolk border.
In the interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, Ms Reeves was questioned about the government’s stance on planning and infrastructure decisions.
When asked if Labour was effectively telling opponents of these projects to “suck it up,” she acknowledged the need for local tolerance of such developments.
Rachel Reeves said: “We can’t carry on not building energy infrastructure and not building housing. Because if we carry on like we are, energy bills are going to continue to go through the roof.
“We’re going to continue to be reliant on Putin and dictators around the world for our basic energy needs.
“And I’m not willing for our country to be at the mercy of dictators in that way. We’re going to have to make tough decisions and I’m not going to shy away from that because a failure to make those decisions and some of these decisions were sitting on the previous Conservative Energy Minister’s desk for months and she wasn’t willing to make those difficult decisions and we are.
“We believe that if you host nationally significant infrastructure you should get something in return, for that, but we can’t just keep saying no to investment projects, whether that’s housing, data centres, energy infrastructure, transport infrastructure, because if we do, our economy will continue like it has been, and that’s not delivering from working people.”
