Restore Britain's energy and infrastructure policy

The Climate Change Act 2008 and the laws built on it would be repealed, and the Climate Change Levy abolished. The paper says levies funding the Renewables Obligation, which it describes as larger subsidies than Contracts for Difference, rest on statute rather than contract and could be cancelled at once by Act of Parliament. Energy Performance Certificates would become voluntary and based on insulation alone, and the Carbon Price Support would be scrapped. The party's economic plan, The Wealth of Our Nation (opens in a new tab), estimates that ending net zero-related public spending would save £15bn to £20bn a year.

The party says Contracts for Difference already signed at fixed prices must be handled carefully to keep business confidence. Its alternatives to tearing them up include a windfall tax above a threshold, a legal duty on wind and solar farms to restore land to its original state, and stricter decommissioning funds. It would also seek amendments to the net zero-related articles of the UK–EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

New licences would reward exploration as well as drilling. The Energy Profits Levy would end, leaving the sector on the standard rate of corporation tax, and up-front investment would become tax-deductible, as in Norway. The party would also look at a Norwegian-style sovereign wealth fund built from oil and gas revenues, and points to the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields as projects that could start producing quickly if given the go-ahead.

The fracking moratorium would be lifted, and seismic rules rewritten so that shale is regulated on a level footing with geothermal drilling. To cover the closure of ageing gas plants, the paper proposes life extensions where possible and, in the interim, new coal-fired power stations.

Existing reactors would get emergency life extensions, with regulations introduced since they were built waived where experts judge it safe. For new capacity, the party wants a British-led programme of small modular reactors (SMRs) under Great British Energy – Nuclear, starting with three Rolls-Royce units at Wylfa and extending to former nuclear and brownfield sites alongside industry and data centres. Over time it would seek to bring Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C into full British ownership.

On regulation, the Office for Nuclear Regulation would be moved under the energy department and given a remit to support energy independence and growth as well as safety. Designs already approved by trusted foreign regulators would be accepted automatically, and the Habitats Regulations would be amended so that minor impacts no longer require costly compensation. Councils with a strong record of fiscal responsibility would be able to keep the business rates from small nuclear projects.

No new offshore wind farm would be approved unless it can fund itself, including the system costs of intermittency. Existing farms would be used to the full while their contracts run, since "the contracts are in place, as is the infrastructure". Industrial and commercial users would move to dynamic electricity pricing, and the party would publish a national dashboard led by kilowatt-hours per person divided by cost per kilowatt-hour.

Approval times for strategic infrastructure should be measured "in months, not years", the paper says. It backs a "rule of positive silence" that would require statutory consultees to object within a short deadline or lose the right to do so.

The Objective also sets out wider infrastructure aims. Developers would have to fund local infrastructure before building, and the party opposes large, low-quality housing estates on countryside land, arguing that lower immigration would ease housing demand. To end hosepipe bans it would prioritise new reservoirs, speed up planning for reservoirs and pipelines, and set water companies strict leakage targets backed by severe fines. Other pledges include reclaiming Britain's fisheries and automating the London Underground with driverless trains.