What to expect on the General Election campaign trail on Friday

Updates from the main parties.

Undated file photos of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (left) and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. Sunak and Starmer will go head to head in the first televised leaders’ debate of the General Election campaign next week. ITV confirmed the Prime Minister and the Labour leader will take part in the show at 9pm on Tuesday June 4. Issue date: Wednesday May 29, 2024. (PA Wire)

Here is your guide to the main developments in the General Election campaign on Friday:

– Labour launches GB Energy

Labour is launching the logo and website of Great British Energy, the publicly owned company the party has pledged to set up to invest in domestic power sources and cut energy bills.

Sir Keir Starmer is pledging that GB Energy’s early investments will include wind and solar projects across the UK.

He also says the energy firm, which would be based in Scotland, would make the country a world leader in new technologies such as floating offshore wind, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage.

Sir Keir said the Tories have failed to make Britain resilient, “leaving us at the mercy of fossil fuel markets controlled by dictators like Putin”, and that Labour would deliver “cheap, clean, homegrown energy that we control”.

The Conservative Party said the GB Energy plans were an unfunded promise that would cost taxpayers, and attacked Labour moves to stop new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, claiming this would hit jobs.

The Green Party said the plans for clean power do not go far enough.

– Starmer makes bid to Scottish voters

Sir Keir is promising a “decade of national renewal” to Scottish voters.

He is joining Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar on Friday to launch his party’s first six promises to Scotland.

First Minister and SNP leader John Swinney said Sir Keir is “offering no change at all” and has challenged the Labour leader to produce an emergency budget to reverse “Tory austerity cuts”.

– Tory crackdown on fly-tipping and anti-social tenants

Fly-tippers would get points on their driving licences and anti-social tenants would get three strikes before being kicked out of social housing under Tory plans.

The party pledged to pass a law that would allow tenants to be kicked out of social housing after three proven instances of anti-social behaviour.

The moves are part of the party’s “plan to stamp out anti-social behaviour across the board to restore pride in place, improve people’s quality of life and boost community cohesion”.

Labour rejected the announcement as “more empty words from a chaotic Tory party who have let anti-social behaviour run rampant and let criminals, vandals and fly-tippers get away with it”, while the Lib Dems said fines for fly-tipping have been so low under the Tories that the party has “effectively legalised littering”.