North Sea Oil and Gas Industry

Patricia Ferguson Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

On Petrofac, the hon. Gentleman should be careful with his tone. To come here and try to undermine efforts to find a buyer for the UK arm and to talk down a business, which, as I just outlined, is a successful and growing business in the North sea, is deeply irresponsible. There have been long-standing issues at the company; he of all people should be well aware of that, given his previous role as a Minister in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. All of us across the House have a responsibility to support the company at the moment, not to undermine it, and to send a positive message to those workers, the suppliers and the customers that the UK arm is continuing to operate as normal. All the signs are that there is a viable long-term future for the company, but that will not happen if we have comments like those made by the hon. Gentleman undermining that business.

On the wider question of the North sea, the hon. Gentleman should know as well as anyone that we lost over a third of the jobs in the North sea during the Conservative party’s time in government. He wants to pretend that the transition arrived in July 2024, but he was in government when those jobs were going, and the Conservatives failed time and again to come up with any credible plan for managing the future of the North sea. We will not do that. We will come up with a plan. That is why we are building the industries of the future on hydrogen, on carbon capture, on offshore wind and on the supply chains—the very investments that he and Conservative Members turn their backs against time and again. They are turning their backs on the future of the energy story in the North sea as they are more interested in exploiting problems than solving them. Time and again, they have learned no lessons from their time in government, when they left these workers without a credible plan. We will not do the same again.

[Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend outline to the House how the Government are delivering the clean energy jobs plan, which will see 40,000 new jobs in the clean energy industries in Scotland by 2030? I am sure that move will be welcomed around the Chamber. Will he advise us what support will be given to that plan by the Scottish Government?

[Michael Shanks]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about building up the industries of the future. I have said on a number of occasions that we should rightly be proud of six decades of oil and gas in the north-east of Scotland, and we should be proud of the work that that workforce has achieved, but we should also recognise that we have been in transition for a long time. Building up the jobs of the future in carbon capture, hydrogen, offshore wind and supply chains is how we ensure a long-term, viable, sustainable future in the north-east—alongside oil and gas for many decades to come.

The particular work that the Scottish Government need to do in this space is about improving the skills offer so that more of Scotland’s young people can take up the 40,000 jobs we will create over the coming years. That is a huge opportunity for Scotland’s young people, but only if we improve Scotland’s education system.