Katie White is showing me a glossy copy of Auto Express magazine, a weekly motoring magazine that reviews new and used cars. White, the Labor MP for Leeds North West, is working on the transition to electric vehicles as part of her brief as climate minister – a task that has taken on new urgency in recent weeks. When we meet on a Tuesday morning at a conference in central London, she tells me about Clyde, a taxi driver who has been plying the streets of London for the past three decades and whom she recently met on her ministerial rounds. Clyde has recently switched from a petrol engine to an electric car. “He loves it,” she says. (I was later told by a source close to her that she read the struck copy Auto Express “cover to cover” to improve her understanding of EV.)
White is one of a team of ministers at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), all working under Secretary of State Ed Miliband. Since the outbreak of the Iran war, the department’s work has been thrust firmly into the spotlight, with Miliband championing his clean power agenda as never before. The Strait of Hormuz blockade has raised fresh concerns about global energy prices and the UK is bracing for a significant shock. Against this background, the pressure on ministers to protect consumers from rising energy bills is only increasing.
And there is increasing pressure on the left of the government. The Green Party is coming for Labour. White believes the government’s record on tackling climate change and moving towards clean power provides a strong platform from which to challenge her rivals – particularly party leader Zack Polanski. “I think Labor is the greenest party in terms of the climate agenda,” she says, a claim the Greens strongly dispute. She criticizes the party for having “no interest in (climate)”, pointing to cases in which local representatives have opposed the construction of renewable energy projects in their areas. White goes further in her criticism of Polanski himself. “People are associating Zack Polanski with people like Caroline Lucas and Ellie Chowns and I think they are very different propositions. Caroline Lucas and Ellie Chowns (have been) committed to the environment for years and years and years and they think deeply about it. Now they may have some differences of opinion, but I don’t hear anything more from Zack Polanski, please, talk about it, please. This is an important issue, but in many minds, he is washing us.
“The more we take control of our energy, the better it is for our security,” White tells me. “We know the cost of living is the number one issue for people right now, and I think the government’s role is to support people at the moment, but also to think longer term.” In a speech on Tuesday, shortly before our interview, she laid out plans to turn the UK from a “petrostate” to an “electrostate”. “You can’t talk yourself out of this crisis,” she said. “You just become more attached to the problem.” Recent interventions – such as the decoupling of oil and gas prices and an increase in funding for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (which gives consumers a £9,000 grant to buy a heat pump) – aim to accelerate that change.
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Elected in 2024, White did not take long to become a minister. In some ways, this is not surprising: she has an extensive background in climate policy and knows Miliband well. The two worked together when he previously held the same role under Gordon Brown, helping to steer the Climate Change Act through the House of Commons in 2008 (White then worked for Friends of the Earth). Before entering parliament, she was Director of Campaigns and Advocacy at WWF. “We’re really lucky to have a Secretary of State who’s been around for a long time,” she says. She argues that Miliband’s agenda is now more important than ever. “We came almost two years ago with the clean energy mission because we thought it was really important then. I think the war in Iran makes it even more important,” she adds.
If the international background has sharpened the case for clean power, the domestic political picture is more complicated. The government’s energy policy has been one of its most enduring programs, set against an administration often defined by scandal, indecision and twists. Next week, Labor faces what is likely to be a difficult set of local elections. White is adamant that climate policy is not one that has been left on the doorstep. “I understand that we need to listen and hear what the voters’ frustrations are,” she says, “but what I don’t hear is the frustration about our climate policy.” In fact, it suggests the opposite is true: the government may need to talk more about its climate policies. “We’ve spent a lot of time delivering, and maybe we should get out there and explain what we’ve done,” she says.
In response to White’s comments, Rachel Millward, deputy leader of the Green Party, said: “Labour is the green party, certainly not the greenest party. Their action on addressing the climate crisis has been inconsistent at best.” She pointed to the government’s planning reforms, as well as its support for airport expansions and the Lower Thames Crossing as evidence.
For White, this tension between Labor and the Greens underlines why her party is the right choice for climate-conscious voters. Her argument is that the Labor government is actively working to reduce the UK’s dependence on fossil fuels. “For people who really care about the climate, I don’t think there’s any other party you can support other than a party that has a clean energy mission,” she says.
For now, however, that argument may not be enough to win back disenchanted voters. DESNZ is just one – albeit less dysfunctional – part of a government still struggling to regain public trust. The electoral payoff for her climate agenda may depend not only on the strength of the case, but on how quickly voters begin to feel the benefits.
(Further reading: Hackney, the cradle of Green ambition)
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