By GB News (Politics) | Created at 2026-06-11 06:48:31 | Updated at 2026-06-12 12:44:18
1 day ago
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is said to be defying Sir Keir Starmer over Net Zero cuts to fund defence.
Mr Miliband is resisting calls to cut spending on Net Zero which would equate to at least one per cent of capital budget savings, according to sources.
The cuts would fund the long-awaited Defence Investment Plan (DIP), which Sir Keir said yesterday in PMQs would be published before the next Nato assembly in a few weeks time.
No10 might forcefully cut spend in the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (Desnz) by hundreds of millions of pounds, cutting funding for hydrogen production and heat pumps.
However, it is said the Prime Minister wants to go further and cut spending on carbon capture and storage, which has a budget of £9billion, but has never been proven to be commercially viable.
The Energy Secretary's defiance could cost defence investment, a Whitehall source told the Telegraph.
They said: "While investing in sustainability is clearly important, it is also unsustainable to leave Britain’s wind farms vulnerable to Russian attack."
This comes after Kemi Badenoch in the House of Commons yesterday focused her questioning on the absence of the DIP and how the Government intends to fund defence spending.
Mark Rowley: Police officers 'don't want to be a political football in the culture wars'
The Met's Police Commissioner Mark Rowley said it has been difficult it is for the police in Northern Ireland amid the unrest and more broadly, being a "political football in the culture wars".
Speaking to GB News, he said: "I feel for the colleagues in Northern Ireland dealing with the unrest of the streets.
"We're seeing some of the extreme rhetoric that we see more in public debate now, which has fuelling this disorder.
"We're playing close attention to it. I think its really challenging for police officers today - they don't want to be a political football in the culture wars so frequently dominating public debate."
Government scrambles as Belfast burns for a second night
The Government is due to respond this morning to a second night of protesting and riots in Northern Ireland.
Hilary Benn the Northern Ireland Secretary is braced to face questions from the media over how quickly the Government will be able to restore peace in Belfast and across the region.
Politicians and other political commentators have all weighed in over the the unrest, calling for "calm", with the sister of Jo Cox, the MP who was murdered 10 years ago, urging people not to "create chaos" as she branded the scenes in Northern Ireland as "devastating".
