Katie White is showing me a glossy copy of Auto Express magazine, a weekly periodical for motorists that reviews new and used cars. White, the Labour MP for Leeds North West, is working on the transition to electric vehicles as part of her brief as climate minister – a task that has taken on fresh urgency in recent weeks. When we meet on a Tuesday morning at a conference in central London, she tells me about Clyde, a taxi driver who has been navigating the streets of London for the past three decades and whom she met recently on her ministerial rounds. Clyde has recently switched from a petrol engine to an electric vehicle. “He loves it,” she says. (I am later told by a source close to her that she has read the battered copy of Auto Express “cover to cover” to improve her understanding of EVs.)
White is one of a team of ministers at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), all working under the Secretary of State, Ed Miliband. Since the outbreak of war in Iran, the department’s work has been pushed firmly into the spotlight, with Miliband defending his clean power agenda like never before. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has raised fresh concerns about global energy prices, and the UK is bracing for a significant shock. Against this backdrop, the pressure on ministers to shield consumers from rising energy bills is only growing.
And there is a growing pressure to the government’s left. The Green Party are coming for Labour. White believes the government’s record on tackling climate change and driving towards clean power provides a strong platform from which to challenge its rivals – particularly the party’s leader, Zack Polanski. “I think Labour is the greenest party in terms of the climate agenda,” she says, a claim the Greens strongly dispute. She criticises the party for taking “no interest in [climate] whatsoever”, pointing to instances in which local representatives have opposed the construction of renewable energy projects in their areas. White goes further in her criticism of Polanski himself. “People are associating Zack Polanski with the likes of Caroline Lucas and Ellie Chowns and I think they’re very different propositions. Caroline Lucas and Ellie Chowns [have been] committed to the environment, for years and years and years and think deeply about it. Now they might have some differences of opinion but I hear nothing from Zack Polanski… I’d love to hear more in terms of please, come in and talk about this, this is an important issue. But to many minds, he’s greenwashing us.”
“The more we can take back control of our energy, the better it is for our own security,” White tells me. “We know the cost of living is the number one issue for people right now, and I think the role of government is to support people in the moment but also to think about the longer term.” In a speech on Tuesday, shortly before our interview, she set out plans to turn the UK from a “petrostate” into an “electrostate”. “You can’t drill yourself out of this crisis,” she said. “You just tie yourself tighter to the problem.” Recent interventions – such as the de-linking of oil and gas prices and an increase in funding for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (which gives consumers a £9,000 grant to buy a heat pump) – are intended to accelerate that shift.
Elected in 2024, White did not take long to become a minister. In some ways, this is unsurprising: she has an extensive background in climate policy and knows Miliband well. The two worked together when he previously held the same role under Gordon Brown, helping to steer the Climate Change Act through the House of Commons in 2008 (White was then working for Friends of the Earth). Before entering parliament, she was Director of Campaigns and Advocacy at WWF. “We’re really lucky to have a Secretary of State who has been around a long time,” she says. She argues that Miliband’s agenda is now more important than ever. “We came in nearly two years ago with the clean power mission because we thought it was really important then. I think the war in Iran makes that even more important,” she adds.
If the international backdrop has sharpened the case for clean power, the domestic political picture is more complicated. The government’s energy policy has been one of its more enduring programmes, set against an administration often defined by scandal, indecision and U-turns. Next week, Labour faces what is likely to be a difficult set of local elections. White is firm that climate policy is not what has been coming up negatively on the doorstep. “I understand that we need to listen to and hear what voters’ frustrations are,” she says, “but what I don’t hear is frustration about our climate policy.” In fact, she suggests the opposite is true: the government may need to talk about its climate policies more. “We’ve been spending a lot of time delivering, and possibly we need to get out there and explain what we’ve been doing,” she says.
In response to White’s comments, Rachel Millward, the deputy leader of the Green Party, said: “Labour is the party of green spin, certainly not the greenest party. Their action on addressing the climate crisis has, at best, been inconsistent.” She pointed to the government’s planning reforms, as well as its backing of airport expansions and the Lower Thames Crossing as evidence.
For White, this tension between Labour and the Greens underscores why her party is the right choice for climate-conscious voters. Her argument is that the Labour government is actively working to reduce the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels. “For people who genuinely care about the climate, I don’t think there’s any other party you could back than one that has a clean power mission,” she says.
For now, however, that argument may not be enough to win back disillusioned voters. DESNZ is only one – albeit less dysfunctional – part of a government still struggling to regain public trust. The electoral payoff for its climate agenda may depend not just on the strength of the case, but on how quickly voters begin to feel the benefits.
[Further reading: Hackney, the cradle of Green ambition]
Content from our partners
Related
Join the debate
Subscribe here to comment