Jackdaw Gasfield

Alan Gemmell Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

The hon. Gentleman is a great champion of the industry, and I know that he does a huge amount on this. I agree with him entirely: geothermal is a huge opportunity and I know that there are projects starting to come much closer to delivery. We want to see much more of that, and I recognise there is more we need to do. I do not want to get into discussions on ringfences within the fund, because the danger is that that could hold back the money from projects that are ready to deploy, but I am certainly happy to speak to him about other projects and what more we can do.

[Alan Gemmell (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his statement and welcome this decision. People in Ayrshire are proud of the role that Scotland has played in powering our nation. Can he say a bit more about what the decision means for supply chain jobs in the North sea sector in Scotland and right across the country?

[Michael Shanks]

It is good to hear from the MP for my old home—he is my mother’s MP and a great champion for Ayrshire. Ayrshire has a critical role, and it could have an even more important role if we were to build new nuclear at Hunterston, which, if it were not for the objections of the SNP, we could be looking at much more seriously. He is right to point to the fact that there are huge opportunities around supply chain jobs. We have had a meeting at a port in his constituency to talk about the opportunities there. The real drive behind this is the clean energy transition for our energy security, but reindustrialisation off the back of that will create good jobs in every single part of the country. We need to dispel the idea that we cannot manufacture things in Britain and actually get back to building things in every single part of the country.