The era of oil and gas is over. The North Sea reserves are running dry—analysis shows that if production continues at 2023 levels, they will run out in just under 14 years. By 2027, the supply of gas will already be failing to meet the UK heating’s needs. The oil and gas giants know this—and they’re pulling out, leaving the workers who have fuelled their profits high and dry.
And yet successive governments have failed to get on top of the situation. They have lurched from crisis to crisis such as the too-little too-late scramble to save jobs at Grangemouth oil refinery. The result is that the UK is falling behind. We’re seeing skilled workers pushed out of jobs, local economies decline and young people forced to take low-skilled work or move abroad. And we’re also watching the huge opportunity presented by the transition to a renewable energy economy pass us by.
This is a crying shame. We are incredibly well-placed as a country to make the most of those opportunities—something that’s been clear to me since my very first job in the renewable energy industry in 2008. I worked on a report on the huge potential of British North Sea ports to become locations where offshore wind turbines, and related infrastructure, are manufactured and then shipped. But since then, we’ve had 17 years of government inaction.
It’s time to change that. I recently put forward my new Energy Jobs Bill to parliament which compels government to make a comprehensive plan to harness the skills and expertise of workers in high-carbon industries, particularly oil and gas, to turn the UK into a clean energy superpower.
It includes a furlough-style scheme to guarantee a proportion of wages for oil and gas workers after leaving the industry, supporting them while they retrain and find new employment. Crucially, this would be funded by a levy on oil and gas companies that, having spent years making obscene profits from polluting our environment, are simply cashing in and checking out.
The bill would also require GB Energy’s investments to support UK jobs. The manufacture and assembly of wind turbines is where the majority of job opportunities in wind are—but a typical north sea turbine contains more than three times as much material from abroad as it does from UK manufacturers. These missed opportunities cost us up to £30bn from 2008 to 2022. We can’t afford to keep losing out.
But the most important part of the bill is that the plan to make the energy transition work must be created in collaboration with trade unions and local communities. It is those who have been working in the oil and gas industry for years who know best how their skills can be harnessed, and what they need to be able to take up new opportunities in the renewables industry.
My Energy Jobs Bill will be funded with a levy on the obscene profits of oil and gas companies
There are blueprints for this. In 1976, workers at Lucas Aerospace published a plan for how they could adapt to making more “socially useful” products. Workers laid out how, instead of supplying military contracts, they could produce medical products like kidney dialysis machines, as well as renewable energy technology like heat pumps and wind turbines.
The plans were rejected by the corporation but they live on as a reminder of the innovative power of workers to respond to the changing needs of our society. It is only by working in collaboration with workers and communities that we can realise the potential for the UK to lead the world in the energy technologies of the future.
