Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of introducing in England a Transition Training Fund for employees in the fossil fuel industry to move to the renewable energy sector.

Government funding for training programmes falls within the remit of the Department for Education.

Within the offshore oil and gas industry a number of initiatives are taking place to help diversify the workforce into other sectors of the economy including other energy sectors. For example, OPITO the offshore industry skills body is proposing to work with other energy sectors to identify barriers to the transferability of skills. The Government’s Oil and Gas Workforce Plan that was published in 2016 also established an oil and gas portal as part of the Talent Retention Solution platform, to facilitate the transition of skilled oil and gas workers who had lost their jobs in the downturn to other growing sectors of the economy.