Labour and SNP have ‘no plan' for oil and gas workers whose jobs could disappear

Telegraph

22-05-2025

Labour and SNP ministers have 'no plan' for thousands of North Sea oil and gas workers who face losing their jobs as production winds down, a damning official report has found.
The Just Transition Commission said 'urgent and ambitious action' was required to manage the shift away from oil and gas or there would be 'harmful effects on workers' and the economy in the North East of Scotland.
Despite the end of North Sea production being 'clearly foreseeable for decades', the report said workers in the industry feared a 'cliff edge' for their livelihoods.
The commission's co-chairman warned there was a 'real risk' that North Sea workers faced the same fate as those in the coal and steel industries when their jobs disappeared.
The commission said 'more needs to be done to support good quality jobs' in offshore renewable developments to help mitigate the lost of oil and gas employment but admitted that 'pay levels are lower in renewables.'
The Tories said the report laid 'bare Labour and the SNP's continued betrayal of North East oil and gas workers' in their drive to achieve net zero.
It was published after Harbour Energy, the UK's largest independent oil and gas producer, announced 250 job cuts in Aberdeen. The firm blamed regulation and the Chancellor's 'punitive fiscal position'.
Sir Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, have come under fire over their ban on oil and gas licences to explore new fields in the North Sea.
Gary Smith, the general secretary of the GMB union, attacked Sir Keir's 'bonkers' net zero plan and warned that there was a 'growing sense of betrayal' among North Sea oil workers.
Although oil licensing in a responsibility reserved to the UK Government, SNP ministers have also adopted a presumption against further exploration in the North Sea.
Douglas Lumsden, the Scottish Tories' shadow energy and net zero secretary, said: 'The Just Transition Commission could not be clearer. SNP and Labour ministers have been asleep at the wheel and have still failed to produce any future plan for oil and gas workers.
'The North East is already feeling the devastating effects of that with 250 job losses at Harbour Energy announced earlier this month.'
He said the SNP and Labour were overseeing a 'demolition' rather than a 'transition' to renewables.
The commission is an independent body that advises the Scottish Government on how to deliver a 'just transition' to a low-carbon economy.
Its members are drawn from business, industry, trade unions, environmental and community groups and academia. They met business, community and council leaders in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray while researching the report.
'Without urgent and ambitious action, investment and Government leadership, Scotland's offshore transition will not take place fairly, with harmful effects on workers, communities, employers and the regional economy of the north east that could otherwise be avoided,' the commission said.
It warned that 'there is still no transition plan for oil and gas workers', and said the transition to renewables would be 'unjust' if it was 'determined mainly by turbulent commodity prices'.
'The fragmented nature of both the fossil fuel and renewables industries makes effective planning more challenging but also more critical,' it said. 'To avoid harms to workers and communities and support new industry, governments must now take a bold, innovative approach that maximises leverage to set standards, establish pathways, create jobs, and manage shocks.'
The commission said offshore renewable developments had to be 'accelerated' and the industry made 'more attractive' to workers, with 'robust minimum standards' for pay and conditions.
It added that oil and gas workers need a 'credible offer' from government to retrain in green industries.
Professor Dave Reay, the co-chairman of the commission, said: 'There's a real risk now that we are looking at a repeat of previous unjust transitions in coal and steel, where a lack of anticipatory planning left workers and communities abandoned at the sharp end of industrial change.'
The commission will meet SNP ministers and Michael Shanks, a UK Labour energy minister, in the coming weeks to discuss its findings.
Gillian Martin, the SNP's acting Net Zero Secretary, said: 'Workers are at the heart of Scotland's just transition to net zero.
'The Scottish Government is working with the energy sector to plan for a multi-skilled workforce and enable our skilled offshore workers to carry their experience and expertise into different roles as the sector evolves.'
A spokesman for the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: 'We have taken rapid steps to deliver the next generation of good jobs for North Sea workers in a fair and orderly transition as part of our Plan for Change, including by making the biggest investment in offshore wind and two first-of-a-kind carbon capture storage clusters.
'This comes alongside Great British Energy, which has already announced a £300 million investment in British supply chains, unlocking significant investment and helping to create thousands of skilled jobs, progressing our mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower.'