INEOS Chemicals: Grangemouth

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris McDonald]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that it is only this Labour Government who have made this decision. This is an appropriate time to identify that the intervention in Grangemouth has a significant impact on securing our ethylene pipeline, which runs across the whole of the UK, as well as on chemical plants in Runcorn and the Forties pipeline. That demonstrates that interventions like this and plants such as Grangemouth work well when we are all part of an integrated United Kingdom.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

Members might ask, “What has Grimsby got to do with Grangemouth?” Well, this is great news for Grangemouth, but I am afraid it will be cold comfort to the workers at the Prax Lindsey oil refinery, where 400 directly employed people have already lost or will lose their jobs by March, along with hundreds more in the supply chain. They will be asking, “Why the investment there but not here?” Is there any good news on the horizon for jobs in petrochemicals or energy in the Humber?

[Chris McDonald]

That is exactly the right question to ask about the Prax Lindsey oil refinery. One of the fundamental differences between the two is the Government’s ability to deal with the owner. The owner of the Prax Lindsey oil refinery left the business in a really terrible state. Of course, we all care very deeply for the workers there and for the families in Humberside; having worked in Humberside myself, I empathise greatly with them.

We are now in the late stages of the process with the official receiver, who has confirmed some redundancies because the offers he has received do not see refinery production returning within the next few years. We hope that process will conclude in the new year. I believe the jobs are guaranteed until March, and the Government have provided significant transitional support to help the workers to move into other jobs in the local area.