Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate North Sea Oil and Gas Industry.
15:41 Andrew Bowie (Conservative)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero if he will make a statement on the future of the North Sea oil and gas industry.
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15:20 Michael Shanks (Labour)
On Petrofac, the hon. Gentleman should be careful with his tone. To come here and try to undermine efforts to find a buyer for the UK arm and to talk down a business, which, as I just outlined, is a successful and growing business in the North sea, is deeply irresponsible. There have been long-standing issues at the company; he of all people should be well aware of that, given his previous role as a Minister in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. All of us across the House have a responsibility to support the company at the moment, not to undermine it, and to send a positive message to those workers, the suppliers and the customers that the UK arm is continuing to operate as normal. All the signs are that there is a viable long-term future for the company, but that will not happen if we have comments like those made by the hon. Gentleman undermining that business.
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15:49 Pippa Heylings (Liberal Democrat)
This is worrying news. Petrofac is one of the North sea’s largest offshore contractors, but it is entering administration today after years of financial difficulty. While I cannot share the desire of the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) to ditch the Climate Change Act 2008, I do share his concern for those 2,000 jobs in Scotland and those workers who face uncertainty about their future, so the Secretary of State must act swiftly to find a sustainable path forward, hopefully secure a buyer and safeguard those skilled jobs.
This underlines why the Liberal Democrats have called for an independent just transition commission, putting oil and gas workers and local communities front and centre. It was good to see the much-awaited publication of the Government’s clean energy jobs plan last week. However, we know that job creation is not happening fast enough to keep up with job losses in the North sea, so can the Secretary of State and the Minister confirm what will be done to fill that gap in the meantime—in the short term—and to deliver a genuinely just transition that keeps those skilled workers powering Britain’s clean energy future?
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15:56 John Lamont (Conservative)
Anyone who has met businesses in Aberdeen will know that they rely on the oil and gas sector. This Labour Government’s “net zero at all costs” policy is a disaster for high-quality skills and jobs in the north-east and across Scotland. What urgent action will the Government take to restore confidence and stability in the energy sector?
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Brian Leishman (Labour)
Incredibly, it is now eight months since the Prime Minister announced £200 million from the National Wealth Fund for the industrial future of Grangemouth. I have had meetings with numerous companies that have proposals and are, frankly, impatient to get started. When will this money be spent, and when will those jobs come to my town? All there is to show for it so far are the bones of an unjust transition and industrial devastation.
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15:59 Michael Shanks (Labour)
We have been looking at a number of proposals. I met the five companies that are the frontrunners for National Wealth Fund investment, along with the Scottish Government Energy Minister. A number of propositions are to be taken forward, and I hope we will have an announcement to make in due course. Of course, we have been trying not to just spend £200 million on the first thing that comes along but to find the genuinely long-term, viable industrial opportunities that deliver jobs at Grangemouth, not just for a year or two but long into the future. The hon. Gentleman is right that for far too long the site has been the victim of a lack of planning, and it is an example of a just transition done wrongly. We want to make that different by having a serious plan for long-term jobs on the site. The NWF has brought companies to the table, and we will deliver an announcement on that in due course.
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16:10 Stella Creasy (Labour)
I am reassured that it is this Minister who is looking at the issue and fighting for those jobs in Aberdeen. I am acutely aware that the previous Government did not take full account of the impact of this situation. We now know that using Rosebank, which the shadow Minister raised, would create 50 times more climate-harming gases than the previous Government admitted, and that the climate crisis is one of the biggest drags on growth. I know that the Minister is committed, in common with all Labour Members, to protecting jobs and the planet, but what more can we do within our supply chains to support his work in getting growth and the just transition that this country desperately needs, without Rosebank?
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16:11 Michael Shanks (Labour)
The House will understand that I will not be drawn on applications that are currently awaiting decision, so I will not comment on that specific application. On my hon. Friend’s broader point, as has already been said, the net zero economy is growing three times faster than the economy at large, and it is our economic future. I recently attended the G20 in South Africa, where Ministers from across the world were talking about the opportunities offered by the clean power transition in their own countries. It is the economic opportunity of the 21st century, as well as how we deliver on climate leadership: contrary to what Opposition Members might now think, that still matters. It is only right that we deliver a genuinely just transition for the workers who have powered our country for the past 60 years. We have seen where transitions have not been done well. The previous Government failed to put in place any kind of plan, but we will deliver a plan that delivers a just transition and our economic future.
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Lizzi Collinge (Labour)
Does the Minister share my concerns about Reform and the Conservatives denying the reality of climate change, and denying that the best way to protect people’s jobs, including energy jobs, is to follow the green jobs plan? Does he agree that nuclear, including as Heysham 1 and 2 in my constituency—and, if I get my way, new nuclear at Heysham—is vital to the clean energy jobs plan?
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16:14 Michael Shanks (Labour)
I was going to say that that might be a note of consensus across the House, but I remembered that the SNP has an ideological objection to nuclear in Scotland, so it will not benefit from the economic opportunities that come from thousands of well-paid, skilled and trade-unionised jobs in nuclear. We believe that there is a long-term future for nuclear, which is why we announced funding for Sizewell C, concluded the small modular reactor programme, and have been working with the US Government to bring forward private funding partnerships to build the latest technology in the UK. That comes with thousands of jobs, will help us to deliver on energy security long into the future, and helps to tackle the climate crisis. This party believes that the climate crisis is an existential threat, and we should do everything that we can to tackle it.
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Michael Shanks (Labour)
I am not sure that there was a hugely coherent argument there. The hon. Gentleman seems to say that the future might be in clean energy jobs, but he says, “They might not be delivered fast enough, so we should not bother doing it.” We think there is an important long-term future in delivering clean energy, including in his constituency, where many supply chain jobs will be delivered, and he is against that economic investment. He should explain to his constituents and to the wider country why Reform wants to make this country more energy-dependent, not less energy-dependent, and why it is against the economic opportunities that our proposals bring. Even if we disagree on the climate crisis—which I find staggering, given all the evidence; I accept that he might be burying his head in the sand—we should at least agree that there is a huge economic opportunity, and an opportunity to maintain our energy security.
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16:14 Michael Shanks (Labour)
My hon. Friend is right to highlight that this is a huge opportunity, which the previous Government talked about a lot but did not actually move forward on delivering. In the spending review, there were significant amounts of investment to move forward with the carbon capture clusters, and we have followed that up with specific investments over the past few months. I have been privileged to visit some of the sites and see the potential for maintaining existing jobs in industry while building the jobs of the future in carbon capture. We are hugely positive about the future vision for carbon capture across the country, as a way to tackle our emissions, help us get to net zero, and create good industrial jobs.
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16:24 Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat)
Does the Minister really consider this a just transition? We have thousands of contractors arriving in the highlands. They stay in workers’ camps, and very few legacy houses are agreed. The companies are not employing local people, and this is all in an area with the greatest fuel poverty in Britain.
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16:24 Mark Pritchard (Conservative)
I say to our colleagues on the Green green Benches that of course climate change exists. We need green investment, green jobs and the green transition, but is there not a fundamental flaw at the heart of the Government’s policy, which is that it is ideologically driven? Have we not learned anything from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine about energy security, energy sovereignty and energy independence? I put it to the Minister, with the greatest respect, that in the medium to long term, if we continue down this track too quickly, without a stable transition for workers and the energy sector, the Government could end up undermining the UK’s national security.
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16:29 Michael Shanks (Labour)
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, although I think I heard a “no” from the Opposition Front Bench in response to his question. The only way in which we can deliver long-term energy security is to get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuels. The future is in clean energy: we see that across Europe, where nuclear and renewables are driving down the cost of electricity, but also insulating countries from the price spikes that we have seen as a result of, for instance, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We are too exposed to gas at the moment, which is why our electricity prices are high, even though for much of the day our power is being generated by clean energy, which is considerably cheaper. Clean energy is the economic opportunity of the 21st century. It is how we deliver our energy security, how we tackle the climate crisis, and how we bring down bills for people now and in the long term.
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Lewis Cocking (Conservative)
While Labour continues down the path of net zero, the UK now imports more than 40% of its total energy needs from overseas. Given that the UK is the second most expensive country in the world for household electricity, will the Minister issue new oil and gas licences so that we can get oil and gas out of the North sea to support jobs and help energy companies to cut fuel costs for people right across these isles?
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