Ministers have unveiled their flagship plan to train and recruit workers for the booming clean energy sector, which it is hoping to supercharge in the next five years.
Up to £18m of new money has been pledged by the UK and Scottish governments specifically to move those working in the oil and gas sector into new roles.
Their jobs are about to fall off a cliff as the industry declines, with more than 40,000 of the current 115,000 jobs forecast to disappear by the early 2030s.
More than 90% of those roles are thought to be fairly easily transferable into green industries – requiring little more than a few months of extra training.
But in the absence of government help, workers have been moving abroad, industry says, taking with them the expertise Britain badly needs to build the wind turbines and electricity cables for its clean energy future.
And it has left them feeling forgotten about after years of working to keep the lights on, and increasingly swayed by Reform UK, both GMB and Unite unions have warned Labour.
Pledge to double green jobs by 2030
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband told Sky News that creating jobs in sectors like carbon capture and storage and hydrogen would help “create a future for those in the North Sea communities”.
The new £18m will pay for careers advice, training, and “skills passports” to enable oil and gas workers to make the switch without having to repeat qualifications.
The cash was announced on Sunday in the new Clean Energy Jobs Plan, which details how the government hopes to make good on its promise to double green jobs by 2030.
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Mr Miliband said in an interview: “This plan shows 400,000 extra jobs in the clean energy economy by 2030.
“This isn’t a target. This is actually what we believe is necessary to meet all the plans we have across the economy.”
The first strategy of its kind hopes to plug the UK’s massive skills gap that threatens to derail the government’s target to green the electricity system by 2030.
It identifies 31 priority occupations that are particularly in demand, such as plumbers, electricians and welders, and lists a target to convert five colleges into new “Technical Excellence Colleges” to train workers.
‘You can’t train people for jobs that aren’t there’
Unions welcomed the plan, but pointed out that skills and training do not equate to new jobs.
They say it will mean nothing without extra investment and a revitalised domestic supply chain to build all the green technology needed, like fibreglass wind turbines and aluminium sub-sea cables.
Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary who has threatened to cut ties with Labour over its policy to end North Sea oil and gas drilling and watering down of a ban on zero-hours contracts, welcomed the “initial steps” but called for “an equally ambitious programme of public investment”.
Professor Paul de Leeuw from the Energy Transition Institute in Aberdeen called the plan “genuinely new and different”, which had for the first time brought together important information in one place.
But “you can’t train people for jobs that aren’t there”, he added, also calling for an investment plan.
Reform heartlands could benefit from Labour’s jobs plan
The boom in clean energy jobs stands to benefit Reform heartlands along the east coast of Britain.
That fact is more by luck than design, given the east coast’s proximity to offshore wind farms and carbon capture and storage fields in the North Sea.
Reform promises a radically different vision for the country’s future, based on reopening coal mines and maxing out nuclear power and what’s left of North Sea oil and gas to boost jobs and the economy.
Its deputy leader, Richard Tice, objects to land being used for solar panels and pylons.
Government modelling forecasts an additional 35,000 direct jobs in Scotland, 55,000 in the East of England and 50,000 in the North West.
To keep the unions sweet, the government will also have to follow through on its pledge to boost the rights of those working offshore in green energy.
A current loophole gives protections like the minimum wage to oil and gas workers in UK territorial seas, but not to workers in the clean energy sector.
