Householders to receive money off bills for going green under Labour plans

People across the UK will receive cost of living discounts – such as reductions on their council tax – if their cities, towns and villages sign up to new “clean energy” projects, under ambitious plans to be announced by Labour tomorrow.

Keir Starmer and shadow climate change secretary Ed Miliband will spell out how a new public body, GB Energy, will join forces with local government, communities and the private sector with the aim of creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and bringing down household energy bills.

The Local Power Plan will see projects such as solar panels being put on public land or the roofs of housing estates, and empower communities to come forward with their own bespoke projects for renewable energy projects directly owned by local people.

It will also encourage partnerships with the Scottish and Welsh governments and with regional mayors to help them develop their own local clean power plans.

A key condition of GB Energy putting in public money would be that local communities would have to see financial benefits from the part they were playing in the…