NORTH Durham Conservative parliamentary candidate David Skelton berated Labour for its lack of innovation in job creation (HAS, Jan 8). But Labour has just announced plans to develop the biggest expansion of wind energy ever seen in the world.

Thanks to this Government’s vision, the skills of our North Sea workforce, the length of our coastline and the innovation of our best businesses, the UK is uniquely positioned to be the world leader in the new offshore wind industry.

An additional 32GW of clean electricity feeding into the UK grid is enough offshore wind energy to supply nearly all the homes in the UK from an extra 6,400 turbines.

Investment in UK offshore wind overall could be worth £75bn and support up to 70,000 high value jobs, many thousands based in the North-East, by 2020.

Anyone who was born and brought up in the North-East must recall that the biggest decline in employment in our traditional industries came at the hands of Conservative administrations which mistakenly thought the financial and service sectors could sustain our economy.

Grahame Morris, Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, Easington.