The Conservatives’ former net zero tsar has revealed that he intends to vote Labour for the first time because Rishi Sunak has been “siding with climate deniers” to politicise the energy transition., Chris Skidmore, a former energy minister, said he could not back the Tories, who had argued that net zero was “a burden and not a benefit”, a decision that he said would cost it votes.
The former Tory MP, who attended cabinet in his previous role, becomes the most senior figure yet to switch his support toThe prime minister has had yet another difficult week, with four polls suggesting the Tories were on track to suffer theirThe polls, combined with warnings from Tory figures that Labour would have unchecked power if it won a large majority, have raised suspicions that the party is now engaged in damage limitation rather than trying to win.
He was the energy minister who signed into law the former prime minister Theresa May’s “net zero by 2050” pledge. More recently, he led the government’s net zero review, which was published in September 2022. “No one is in the pay of Just Stop Oil or Putin. No one has ever been told they must remove their boilers, or replace their petrol cars, for the energy transition is just that: a moderate transition from the past towards the future.”Make sense of the UK election campaign with Archie Bland's daily briefing, direct to your inbox at 5pm .
The former Conservative, who is now a professor, said he would now transfer his vote to Labour, which has pledged to deliver a “green industrial revolution” to meet net zero targets. ”It is a decision that I know others have and will be making also … All Conservatives serious about delivering real change to reduce emissions and grow our economy should be thinking the same.”