Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery

Carla Denyer Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

I should avoid straying into taxation policy, which is not in my brief. However, I will say that we are doing everything we can to issue a speedy response to the consultation on the future of energy in the North sea, which is all about how we strategically plan the future of oil and gas in this country to ensure that we are building up the future industries at the same time as supporting existing oil and gas supply chains and jobs, and we are moving that work forward.

Let me be clear about what the official receiver does. The official receiver is in post with statutory duties, but that is not in the same bucket as nationalising an industry. It would not be right for the Government to underwrite failing businesses, but we have a responsibility to ensure that an active refinery is wound down in a way that is safe, or that we can find a buyer to continue it.

[Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)]

I stand in solidarity with the workers in the oil industry who are facing such uncertainty and fear. This incident illustrates perfectly why a carefully managed worker-led transition away from oil and gas is so desperately needed to avoid a chaotic collapse in which workers pay the price. Will the Minister agree to implement my Energy and Employment Rights Bill, whose proposals include the publication of a plan for the redeployment and retraining of oil and gas workers, paid for by oil and gas companies across the industry rather than piece by piece and crisis by crisis?

[Michael Shanks]

I do not agree with the hon. Lady’s proposed piece of legislation, so I will not be supporting it. I think that that is the wrong approach, although she has highlighted the right problem. We are moving as quickly as possible to plan the transition properly, although we should have been doing that many years ago when it started, and as a result we have lost a third of the workforce in the past 10 years. More than 70,000 people have lost their jobs because we failed to plan for this.

I recognise the problem that the hon. Lady has described, but I think that the answer is for us to do two things: to manage the existing fields and support the industry for the lifetime of those fields, and to build up, at speed, investment in the industries that come next. In the spending review the Government supported industries in respect of carbon capture and storage and hydrogen, and, of course, significant investments in the supply chain through Great British Energy to ensure that we are building infrastructure in this country again and securing the jobs that come with it. The transition is important, and we are doing all that we can to ensure that workers are at the heart of it.