Unions & climate groups demand £1.9 billion emergency funding for North Sea workers

Today (Wednesday), a coalition of trade unions and climate groups are rallying outside Parliament to demand the Chancellor delivers an emergency funding package of £1.9 billion per year for North Sea workers ahead of the Spending Review. Meanwhile, the Scottish Parliament will this afternoon host a debate by the Scottish Conservatives on protecting Scotland’s oil and gas workers.

A funding package on this scale is urgently needed for oil and gas and supply chain workers to make the transition into renewable energy jobs, ensuring that workers and communities benefit, says the coalition. 

The call is endorsed by the largest union representing UK offshore workers, Unite the Union, as well as the National Union of Rail and Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), and Aberdeen’s Trades Union Councils. 

The £1.9 billion emergency funding package to create permanent, unionised renewable energy jobs, and support the country’s oil and gas workers to transition into them, is comprised of:

• £1.1 billion per year to develop permanent, local jobs in public and community-owned wind manufacturing.
• £440 million of further investment each year for ports, on top of the £1.8 billion already committed through the National Wealth Fund.
• £355 million per year to develop a dedicated training fund for offshore oil and gas workers, with match-funding from industry.

Catrina Randall, Just Transition campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said:

“The chancellor must urgently commit to this funding package to support oil and gas workers and their communities in the energy transition. In Scotland we are already seeing what a transition led by corporate greed will look like, with job losses, fuel poverty and emergency food bank use on the rise, especially in the North East. This cannot continue. We need public investment to support workers into good secure jobs in manufacturing and renewables here in the UK, as part of the move to an energy system that lowers bills, provides energy security, tackles climate change and allows communities to reap the benefits.”

As the North Sea basin’s reserves decline, the wider oil and gas sector has lost 227,000 jobs in the past 10 years. This is despite the UK government issuing roughly 400 new drilling licences over the same period, and energy companies making record-breaking profits. 

Harbour Energy, which has handed £1 billion to its shareholders in the past three years, recently announced it would cut a further 250 jobs from its offshore workforce, and two weeks ago. The coalition points to huge job losses at Grangemouth and Port Talbot as examples of what happens when the Government leaves the transition entirely in the hands of private companies. Rachel Reeves must step in to provide North Sea workers with the support they need to prevent the repetition of past mistakes.

Claire Peden, Unite for a Workers Economy team lead, said:

“The UK government must deliver a real, robust plan that guarantees good, secure jobs for oil and gas workers as part of the energy transition. So far, that promise hasn’t materialised—yet 30,000 jobs are at risk by 2030. Climate change is an urgent crisis, but it must not be working people who bear the brunt. A just transition needs to be a workers’ transition: no one must be left behind.”

Ruby Earle, Worker Transition Lead at Platform, said:

“No worker should have to wait until crisis point before they get support,- like we’ve seen in Scunthorpe. Today, unions and climate campaigners are sending a clear message to the Chancellor. We need urgent public investment that creates permanent, unionised renewable energy jobs, and supports the country’s oil and gas workers to move into them. Multinationals have held us to ransom for too long. It’s time we give workers and communities a real stake in our energy industry.”

The coalition outlines that oil and gas companies consistently fail to invest in renewable energy jobs and retraining for their workers, whilst prioritising shareholder profits and cutting or offshoring jobs that should stay here in the UK. 

Offshore wind energy capacity has the potential to grow by as much as six times in the next 15 years. The groups state that public investment now and on this scale would create thousands of long-term, good quality and unionised manufacturing jobs which oil and gas and supply chain workers could transition into.

65 climate groups including Greenpeace UK, Uplift, Friends of the Earth Scotland, Oil Change International, Global Justice Now, Extinction Rebellion and Platform are also part of the coalition. The group were also joined at the rally by politicians from Labour, SNP and the Green Party.