Tory leader, David Cameron and Greg Clark, the Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary, have launched plans for the largest overhaul of British energy policy since the early 1980s.

With 13 years of government, a succession of eleven energy ministers, and eight Secretaries of State with responsibility for energy, Labour has failed to take timely action to secure our energy supplies, meet our carbon emission targets, and ensure energy is affordable.

"We are setting out a Conservative programme for the long-overdue reform of British energy policy," Mr Cameron said. "Together with the actions we will take to mobilise the investment required to enact those reforms and our strategy for minimising the cost to consumers."

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He criticised British energy policy for being out of date. "It was designed almost thirty years ago for a world in which Britain had an excess of generating capacity; in which we enjoyed the benefits of growing North Sea oil and gas production; and in which neither local pollution nor climate change were the concerns they are today."

Greg Clark added that five more years of Gordon Brown would "only make an already precarious situation worse" in terms of the challenges we face with climate change and securing our energy supplies. "We need radical change and in this Green Paper we set out plans for the biggest overhaul of British energy policy in a generation," he said.

"Our policies will deliver secure, sustainable and affordable energy for the years ahead, while boosting investment and creating jobs. Ours is a plan to turn a threat into an opportunity, demonstrating the energy leadership and values needed to get Britain back on track."

(CD/GK)