Burnham to Launch 'Great British Grid' in Landmark Conference Speech

Andy Burnham is set to use his first party conference address as Labour leader to announce the creation of a new publicly owned body tasked with investing in Britain's electricity grid, in what is being positioned as a defining moment for his vision of expanded public control over essential utilities.

The prime minister will tell activists gathered in Liverpool on Tuesday that the new company, to be called Great British Grid, will accelerate the process of connecting projects to the electricity network by introducing greater competition into a system currently dominated by a small number of private operators.

According to the plans, Great British Grid will invest in and compete for transmission connection projects alongside the three private companies that presently own and manage the grid across Britain. The government argues that this injection of competition will drive down costs and shorten the delays that have left a growing backlog of energy projects waiting to connect.

Burnham is expected to frame the initiative as the first substantial step in a broader ambition to bring utilities under greater public control, a theme that formed the centrepiece of his leadership pitch during the summer. He will argue that faster grid connections are essential to resolving what he describes as a cost crisis in energy that has been crippling for businesses across the country.

The Labour leader will also use the speech to set out a new objective of aligning UK energy costs with those of other European nations within a decade, with the grid reforms presented as central to achieving that goal.

Beyond the grid announcement, Burnham is expected to provide long-awaited detail on how he intends to finance a new NHS-style social care system for England, a plan he first unveiled over the weekend. The question of funding has become increasingly pressing ahead of a difficult Budget expected at the end of next month, with the government's fiscal headroom narrowed by recent increases in the cost of UK borrowing.

Details of Great British Grid remain incomplete, but Labour has indicated that funding for the body will be drawn from the existing budget of GB Energy, the public green investment company established last year and headquartered in Aberdeen. The party has also said the new entity would make it easier for firms awaiting grid connections to finance infrastructure themselves, with Great British Grid offering support and potentially co-investing in such projects.

The reforms arrive against a backdrop of mounting concern over the state of Britain's transmission infrastructure. The shift away from large fossil fuel power stations towards renewable sources such as offshore wind farms, often located in remote areas, has created an urgent need for extensive rewiring of an ageing grid that was not designed for this new geography of generation.

Energy regulator Ofgem has estimated that some £70bn of investment will be required in the grid between 2025 and 2031, a figure that amounts to roughly four times the current rate of spending. In a report published earlier this month, the National Audit Office warned that the queue of projects waiting for connection had grown significantly, while delays affecting those projects were also worsening.

In his address on Tuesday afternoon, Burnham is expected to say that Great British Grid will work alongside both the private sector and existing network companies to reform what he characterises as a broken energy market. He will argue that increased competition will lower costs and accelerate delivery, enabling businesses to connect more quickly and expand at a faster pace.

The speech comes as the government confronts difficult economic choices. Speculation has been growing that Burnham may signal a willingness to review the triple lock, the policy under which state pensions rise each year by the highest of 2.5 per cent, inflation, or average earnings. The commitment, which has appeared in every Labour manifesto since 2015, is projected to add billions to pension costs in the coming decades as the UK population ages.

On Monday, Chancellor John Healey declined to guarantee that the triple lock would be included in the party's next election blueprint. Asked about the commitment, he told BBC Radio 5 Live that the manifesto would be settled at the appropriate time and that he would not make such a promise in advance.

Burnham's social care plans, which would provide free services to everyone in England, are intended to be put before voters at the next general election, which must legally be held by August 2029 at the latest. The prime minister has said he aims to begin rolling out the new system from 2030, provided he secures a mandate.

Ahead of the speech, Burnham has promised an honest conversation with the public about difficult subjects, while maintaining the overall message of hope that has served as the theme of the four-day gathering. He is expected to say that while he initially intended to deliver a conventional tub-thumping conference address, his sense of patriotism convinced him that something very different was required.

The announcement of Great British Grid represents a significant expansion of Labour's state-intervention agenda and is likely to provoke debate over the appropriate balance between public ownership and private enterprise in the energy sector. Supporters contend that strategic public investment can unlock bottlenecks that private operators have failed to address, while critics may question whether a new state body can deliver results more efficiently than existing market participants.