Fit solar panels to pensioner homes to beat Reform, says Labour MP

The government should fit solar panels to "pensioner bungalows" as part of a strategy to combat Reform UK, a Labour MP has said.

Jo White, the MP for Bassetlaw, said voters needed to see a "tangible benefit" from Labour's climate policies - and she called for grants for heat pumps and solar panels to be given to "working people" not just those on benefits.

White made the policy proposal as MPs brainstormed ideas on how to fight back against Nigel Farage's party at a fringe meeting at Labour's annual conference in Liverpool.

The opening days of the conference have been dominated by debate about how to beat Reform, which continues to lead Labour in the opinion polls.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband pledged his Net Zero policies would lower people's energy bills by £300 by 2030 by replacing expensive fossil fuels with cheaper renewables.

But the benefits are yet to be felt as energy bills have continued to rise due to spikes in gas costs, which White said felt like the government was "taking the Mickey out of my constituents".

Speaking at the Transform to Beat Reform fringe, White warned people in her constituency felt a "disconnect, that has rotted away" and said Labour needed to act fast on several fronts if they wanted to stop voters turning to Nigel Farage's party.

White, who founded the Red Wall Caucus of about 35 MPs from the North and Midlands to draw attention to constituencies outside London, was asked what she would like Labour to do this week to start changing things for the better.

She said the government should widen the availability of grants to include pensioners and those on middle incomes.

"What I want to see is solar panels on pensioner bungalows and see those pensioners advocating for retrofitting," she told the meeting.

"We need to be rolling out these heat pump and solar panels initiatives at speed and at the moment it only gets to people on benefits and it has to go to working people.

"We have to tackle this in a very, very different way so people have a tangible benefit."

The Bassetlaw MP said the failure to lower bills so far was causing people to turn towards misinformation on climate change and give up on tackling the crisis altogether.

"In my constituency climate scepticism is growing at a rapid rate because of the increasing costs," she said.

"That promise of a £300 reduction in bills is actually taking the Mickey out of my constituents - I am ashamed that we keep repeating that answer."

The problem was being fuelled by people turning away from traditional journalism towards social media influencers, she said, and then being funnelled towards misinformation, conspiracy theories, and far-right politics.

Calling on Labour and the progressive movement to build a rival "ecosystem" of influencers, podcasters and social media channels, White said Labour needed to start telling more compelling stories.

"I think we on the left are miles behind what the far right are doing," she said.

"People are sucked into matching YouTube rather than mainstream media. They think it's not the truth.

"Once people have gone down that spiral it's very difficult to bring them back into the real world and challenge what they've been told."

However, White suggested this could be combated by showing left-wing policies did actually work and then getting people to tell their trusted friends and neighbours, including on social media sites geared more towards communities like Nextdoor.

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