INEOS Chemicals: Grangemouth Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business and Trade
Tracy Gilbert
Main Page: Tracy Gilbert (Labour - Edinburgh North and Leith)Department Debates - View all Tracy Gilbert's debates with the Department for Business and Trade
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Chris McDonald
I thank the hon. Lady for her welcome for the announcement. I think that is something that we can share across the whole House. I would just reiterate the point that the Government recognise the importance of the oil and gas sector. Of course it is important to the UK, to the people who work in it and to local communities as well, but we also recognise that the North sea is a declining basin. We have taken the actions, through our clean energy jobs plan and our clean energy initiatives, to ensure that we secure the supply chains for those clean energy jobs here in the UK. Again, this is a marked contrast between this Government and the previous Conservative Government, who were proud to boast of the UK being the largest market for offshore wind but enabled those jobs to be located in Denmark and other countries around the North sea. We do not think that is acceptable. That is why we are bringing the jobs here and helping workers to transition into those industries.
Tracy Gilbert (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab)
I strongly welcome this announcement, which, along with the agreement of the Forth green freeport full business case, demonstrates this Government’s commitment to reindustrialising Grangemouth, Leith and the wider Forth area. Can the Minister provide any details on when we will see the £25 million of seed capital attached to that deal being deployed to further secure and create jobs across the area?
Chris McDonald
My hon. Friend makes the point incredibly well about the need to reindustrialise and create good industrial jobs. It is my mission as Industry Minister to release additional productive capacity in the UK that will increase our manufacturing output and improve our productivity and balance of trade. That is rare—it might be decades since a Government have had this level of ambition for our industrial and manufacturing sectors—but for us it is about not just ambition and words but delivering jobs on the ground.