Prime Minister outlines his ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution

The Prime Minister today sets out his ambitious ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution which will create and support up to 250,000 British jobs.

Covering clean energy, transport, nature and innovative technologies, the Prime Minister’s blueprint will allow the UK to forge ahead with eradicating its contribution to climate change by 2050. This is particularly crucial in the run-up to the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow next year.

The plan – which is part of the PM’s mission to level up across the country – will mobilise £12 billion of government investment. This will create and support up to 250,000 highly-skilled green jobs in the UK, and encourage over three times as much private sector investment by 2030.

At the centre of his blueprint are the UK’s industrial heartlands, including in the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, West Midlands, Scotland, and Wales, which will drive forward the green industrial revolution and build green jobs and industries of the future.

The Prime Minister’s ten points, which are built around the UK’s strengths, are:

1. Offshore wind: Producing enough offshore wind to power every home, quadrupling how much we produce to 40GW by 2030, supporting up to 60,000 jobs.
2. Hydrogen: Aiming to generate 5GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030 for industry, transport, power and homes, developing the first town heated entirely by hydrogen by the end of the decade.
3. Nuclear: Advancing nuclear as a clean energy source and developing the next generation of small and advanced reactors, which could support 10,000 jobs.
4. Electric vehicles: Backing the UK’s world-leading car manufacturing bases including in the West Midlands, North East and North Wales to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles, and transforming the national infrastructure to better support them.
5. Public transport, cycling and walking: Making cycling and walking more attractive ways to travel and investing in the zero-emission public transport of the future.
6. Jet Zero and greener maritime: Supporting difficult-to-decarbonise industries to become greener through research projects for zero-emission planes and ships.
7. Homes and public buildings: Making homes, schools and hospitals greener, warmer and more energy-efficient, whilst creating 50,000 jobs by 2030, and a target to install 600,000 heat pumps every year by 2028.
8. Carbon capture: Becoming a world-leader in technology to capture and store harmful emissions away from the atmosphere, with a target to remove 10MT of carbon dioxide by 2030, equivalent to all emissions of the industrial Humber today.
9. Nature: Protecting and restoring the natural environment, planting 30,000 hectares of trees every year, while creating and retaining thousands of jobs.
10. Innovation and finance: Developing the cutting-edge technologies needed to reach these new energy ambitions and make the City of London the global centre of green finance.

Talking about the plan in a statement, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “Although this year has taken a very different path to the one we expected, I haven’t lost sight of our ambitious plans to level up across the country. My Ten Point Plan will create, support and protect hundreds of thousands of green jobs, whilst making strides towards net-zero by 2050.

“Our green industrial revolution will be powered by the wind turbines of Scotland and the North East, propelled by the electric vehicles made in the Midlands and advanced by the latest technologies developed in Wales, so we can look ahead to a more prosperous, greener future.”

Good news for electric vehicles

Following extensive consultation with car manufacturers and sellers, the Prime Minister has confirmed that the UK will end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, ten years earlier than planned. However, hybrid cars that can drive a significant distance without emitting carbon will remain until 2035. The UK car industry already manufactures a significant proportion of the electric vehicles in Europe, including the Nissan Leaf.

To support this acceleration, the Prime Minister has announced:

1. £1.3 billion to accelerate the rollout of chargepoints for electric vehicles in homes, streets and on motorways across England, so people can more easily and conveniently charge their cars.
2. £582 million in grants for those buying zero or ultra-low emission vehicles to make them cheaper to buy and incentivise more people to make the transition.
3. Nearly £500 million to be spent in the next four years for the development and mass-scale production of electric vehicle batteries, as part of the government’s commitment to provide up to £1 billion, boosting international investment into the UK’s strong manufacturing bases including in the Midlands and North East.

This will help protect and create thousands of new jobs, particularly in the Midlands, North East, and North Wales. The government will also launch a consultation on the phase-out of new diesel HGVs to put the UK in the vanguard of zero-emission freight.

These new commitments, backed by government funding, send a clear signal to industries across the British economy to invest in the UK, which is why today the Prime Minister will host a virtual roundtable with green investors to set out his ambitious plan and incentivise further private sector investment.

This marks the beginning of the UK’s path to net zero, with further plans to reduce emissions while creating jobs.