There is debate about the affordability of Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan to invest £28 billion over the next parliament. This risks distracting from the fact that funding the green transition does require serious, sustained investment, starting now.

The debate is also missing another crucial point: that the investment will more than pay for itself over the medium to long term through increased efficiency, lower energy bills and higher economic growth.

Developing new green industries will help to modernise the UK’s industrial base, producing technology spillovers that could benefit other industries, and will enhance UK energy security in a more dangerous world. There is, therefore, an extremely strong, in many ways unanswerable case, for a major public investment programme in the green transition.

In this briefing we look at the details of what green investment should be in the next parliament, to boost the economy, bring down the cost of living and ensure a safe climate in future. But is Labour’s plan what’s needed and will it be enough?