Alan Whitehead responds to Prime Minister's plans for offshore wind energy

"Today's announcement is big on style but sorely lacking in substance. Ambition is important but it's useless without a proper plan and package of proposals to deliver it.

"Boris Johnson has said that by 2030 offshore wind will heat every home and power every kettle and washing machine, but the target he outlines - 40GW - is less than half of the total capacity we would need by the early 2030s.

"He also didn't set out how the current grid system will be updated to cope with energy generation on that scale. Currently wind farms are all individually linked to the grid - the equivalent of every single house having a cable to the mains grid rather than a local relay station.

"And crucially, offshore wind energy alone simply cannot do what the Prime Minister is saying. To power every home by 2030 we need other forms of low-carbon energy generation too, to offset the variability of wind, like solar, tidal lagoons, biomass stations and hydrogen.

"Boris Johnson is not known as a details man, but to deliver a truly low-carbon future, he must give the policy as much attention as he does the press release."