Contribution
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Mr Western. I thank the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) for securing this highly important debate, and I draw everyone’s attention to my membership of Unite the union.
Since coming to this place, I have repeatedly raised the issue of the Grangemouth oil refinery closing, with 435 jobs lost on site and 2,822 lost in the wider supply chain. Closure means an end to a century of oil refining on the site and to a generational employer for Grangemouth people. Nearly every family in the town has had someone, or knows someone, who worked at the site. There is no doubt about it: local businesses will feel the pain of the closure. The hairdressers, barbers, small independent retailers, hotels, restaurants, pubs and garages are the very businesses that make up the heartbeat of the local community and the town’s economy. They are all negatively impacted.
The closure is more than just a local constituency issue. It is Scotland’s biggest industrial issue in four decades, it is safe to say, since the end of the coalmining industry. To put the matter into the national context, the Grangemouth refinery was worth more than £400 million per annum to the Scottish economy, according to both Scottish Enterprise and PwC. While conflict rages on in Europe, British people have been susceptible to the resulting price shocks and disrupted supply chains that have impacted the oil industry in Europe. At this perilous time, with refining ending at Grangemouth, Scotland is now in the ridiculous position of importing our own oil. The energy-abundant nation of Scotland is reliant on global logistics and outside influences for our oil products. It is incredible that we have lost our self-sufficiency.
Why has this happened? Why did the refinery close? I will say something different from what right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned so far. Let me be clear: the idea that the Grangemouth refinery closed as part of trying to achieve net zero, or as part of some woke green agenda or an environmental campaign, is utter nonsense. The real reason—the heart of the matter—is Petroineos. It is made up of private capital, Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos and a foreign Government in the form of Chinese state-backed PetroChina. It controlled the Grangemouth refinery, a key piece of Scottish and British national infrastructure, and closure was a commercial decision.
Closure happened because it was more profitable for a private company to make hundreds of workers redundant and operate Grangemouth as an import terminal. It was international capital concerned with the corporate greed of a billionaire owner, with shareholder dividends their priority. That is the ruthless nature of how international capital works. Ratcliffe has massively weakened Scotland’s national economy and jeopardised our country’s energy security for his own needs. I am disgusted by Governments allowing that to happen, and by the pandering to Ratcliffe in spending billions of pounds to help with the regeneration around Old Trafford and hundreds of millions of pounds to provide a loan guarantee for his plant in Belgium.
I make absolutely no apologies for being ideological. As the country sacrificed state ownership of vital infrastructure, we lost control of our own refinery. We have seen job losses, an exodus of skills and talent, local shops closing and all the social consequences that follow deindustrialisation. That is what has happened to former industrial towns the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. For goodness’ sake! The country needs a different industrial direction, to bring an end to being at the mercy of private capital and foreign Government influence.
There is a clear, coherent case for Government ownership. It is in the public interest. In questions to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and to the Treasury, I have asked what ownership stake the UK Government are willing to take in future industries at Grangemouth. I put the same question to the Minister this afternoon.
Just as I make no apologies for being ideological in my opinion of public ownership, I make no apologies for criticising both the UK and Scottish Governments. We know that oil will be part of the energy mix for decades to come, so it is time for both of Scotland’s Governments to be bold. The existing infrastructure of the Grangemouth refinery is largely still in place, and there should be a conversion to sustainable aviation fuel there.
We have signed up to highly ambitious mandates, so let us try to meet those targets. Successful conversion of refineries is there for everyone to see—at La Mède in France, Eni’s Venice refinery in Italy and Phillips’s Rodeo refinery in the US. I say this to the Minister today: what happens at Grangemouth will go a long way in deciding how we shape our future economy, who controls it and who this Government actually serve and work for.