Contribution
The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point about what the stewardship of the basin has to look like, and he made another important point earlier about not conflating oil and gas. Equally, the story we tell about the North sea is often what the North sea looked like 30 or 40 years ago. It has changed significantly; the operators in the basin have changed, but so too has the structure of many of the operations. The North Sea Transition Authority has a role in planning the future of the basin and identifying issues relating to sustainability and infrastructure. It also has a role in looking at how we can do more around, for example, the electrification of platforms, so that we can reduce emissions from the platforms wherever possible and tie into offshore wind projects where possible.
Let me turn to the critical issue of the workforce. Under the North sea future plan, we will introduce a statutory objective for the North Sea Transition Authority to consider workers, communities and supply chains in its decisions. The NSTA has been looking at how it can support the transition for a long time, but this gives it a statutory objective to do so. This is not just about production and infrastructure. It is about people and places; it is about the workers who built the North sea success story, and with it the success of the British economy, the communities that supported it and, crucially, the supply chains that go with it.
We will also extend employment rights and protections to offshore renewables workers, and I hope that everyone in this House will support that. Coming to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm), we recognise that the clean energy workforce of the future has to have strong and fair protections, be trade unionised and have good, well-paid jobs. That is partly why, for offshore wind, we have driven forward the fair work charter as part of the clean industry bonus, so that rights are at the heart of these jobs and that, wherever possible, workers can transition from oil and gas into these jobs with good terms and conditions. That was opposed by some Conservative Members when we took it through Parliament recently, but I hope that they will rethink, because it is hugely important.
The hon. Member for Bromsgrove made a point about energy security, which is absolutely right. Our energy security is our national security. It is perhaps more important now than in recent years that we recognise that, in an uncertain world, our energy security is a hugely important part of how we build much more security at home. The point made about refinery capacity was right. We lost two refineries in this country, and I regret hugely that we did not do more to prevent those closures in the years leading up to them. We have now to protect our four refineries, which are hugely important sovereign capacity. In a global fuel crisis, those refineries have been key to ensuring that Britain has not suffered fuel shortages. We have to continue to support them.
On the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), we committed to invest £200 million in the future of Grangemouth, and other projects are coming through. I gently say to him that we had to pick it up with no planning done in advance, and I am afraid it is not possible for us to get projects off the shelf, invest money in them and get them built immediately. We need business and industry to come forward with propositions, and the Government have an open door to engage with them directly on how we can deploy that money to Grangemouth. I meet them regularly to make sure that is happening, and we will continue to do that.
Again, I thank the hon. Members who have participated. It is hugely important that we talk about these issues. I hope we can also find a way, at some point, of reaching some consensus on how we can have an all-energy approach to the future of the North sea. I recognise that needs a pragmatic position on our side, but it also needs a pragmatic position from those who, in recent years, seem to have become anti the very investment that will drive forward the future of the North sea.
It is not possible for us to secure the long-term future of the North sea purely by calling for new licences in oil and gas. Anyone who believes that is the long-term answer is ignoring the reality in front of us. Oil and gas is hugely important, but the transition works only if we also invest and build up what comes next. We need both of them. A fair, managed and prosperous transition means investing in all of that—in offshore wind, carbon capture, long-duration energy storage in Scotland and elsewhere, and in supply chains so that we are building energy in Britain again, not towing it in from somewhere else and offshoring the jobs. That is the opportunity in front of us.
None of this will be easy. We will have to wrestle with some real challenges, but if we move fast to invest in the future and take a pragmatic position, I believe the North sea has a strong future ahead of it. I do not pretend that it is straightforward or that that will somehow give comfort to the workers who are facing it just now, but I am absolutely committed to making this work, and so are the Government. I thank the hon. Member for Bromsgrove for securing the debate, and I thank everyone who participated.