North Sea Oil and Gas

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Graham Leadbitter]

The hon. Member probably needs to keep up a bit because that position has already been scrapped. That was articulated by the First Minister.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

Given the bombshell news the hon. Gentleman has just delivered to the Chamber—that we have a new energy strategy from the Scottish Government—when will that be published?

[Graham Leadbitter]

I think that the hon. Gentleman is not keeping up with the current debate because the question was about the SNP’s policy. The strategy will be published in due course.

Those who believe that we should drill, drill, drill with little to no investment in the renewables transition are simply pushing the cliff edge further away without dealing with the cliff edge itself. That would also be unforgivable. The industry is clear that it needs the Government to protect oil and gas jobs while building up the renewables sector to transfer those jobs to—a focus not on one or the other, but on a transition from one to the other. It is abundantly clear that neither the Tories nor Labour has a serious focus on that transition.

A new report out from the Energy Transition Institute at Robert Gordon University—a highly respected Aberdeen institute—makes for stark reading. The report predicts a further 18,000 job losses in the north-east of Scotland by 2035—1,600 jobs every single year. Crucially, the report then points to the huge benefits that can be achieved from a strong transition to renewables. The report’s author states:

“That is not a marginal advantage. It is a structural head start that few other regions in the UK or Europe can match.”

He goes on to say:

“The priority must be to prevent these losses in the first place, not simply to manage the consequences after the fact.”

What this needs now is the investment, policy, alignment and co-ordination to match. That is really simple. Scotland has enormous opportunity to reindustrialise with renewable energy technologies, but to do so requires existing North sea jobs to be protected, or the loss of those vital skills will stall that transition to renewables. There is a so-called “Goldilocks zone”, where growth in renewable jobs more than matches reductions in oil and gas jobs, but crucially, only if the transition is embraced and the oil and gas sector is protected through that transition.

Other scenarios have devastating consequences for jobs and the people and communities of north-east Scotland. Pragmatism and pace must be the watchwords on energy policy if we are to make the most of this enormous renewables opportunity in front of us and ensure a future for the workers of the north-east. It is abundantly clear that mass job losses under the Tories and the undermining of those vital jobs by Labour are leading to economic and social pain across the north-east of Scotland.

The people best placed to support the transition in Scotland and protect jobs and communities are the people who live and work in Scotland. That is why Scotland must have the full powers and control of energy policy that come with independence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Uma Kumaran]

The oil industry and fossil fuel lobbyists want us to believe that we need to take them on the journey with us. The case for renewables is there. At the moment, however, the voices for the renewables industry and more sustainable energy sources are being drowned out by those who want us to preserve the system that we already have.

[Andrew Bowie]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Uma Kumaran]

I will not give way; I will continue.

I am making the case for growing clean industries, ensuring that British workers are at the heart of the cutting-edge change that every country is now facing, for the jobs of today and the future.

Workers need a credible transition plan, which means proactive planning, serious investment and putting their voices first. That is exactly what this Government are doing. This is about ensuring workers’ jobs and livelihoods so that they can pay their bills, rents and mortgages. These are the challenges that people are facing now. We are not talking about hypotheticals; people have bills to pay now, this month and next month. This is not a hypothetical scenario or an abstract discussion; we must take workers with us.

We cannot allow the pipe dreams peddled by those with vested interests in fossil fuels to blind us to the realities in front of us. This is an industry already in decline. We know what a botched industrial transition looks like.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne—sorry, I mean my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas)—for securing this important and timely debate, although I think his call for personal ambition to be left aside at this time is a faint hope. Given what is happening on the Government Benches, this is surely a time for personal ambition to come to the fore, and I am sure we will see a lot more of it in the next few weeks.

In that regard, I take this opportunity to welcome the newest Conservative party Member of Parliament to this House. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Douglas Lumsden) secured an incredible majority in his constituency last week, in a referendum on the future of our oil and gas industry that was won by those of us who support its continuance, by those of us who support the jobs being maintained in this country, that city and that region, and by a real champion for that part of the world. I am sure that his voice, heard already in this Chamber this morning, will be heard loud and clear over the next few months and years as he continues to champion that great city and that great industry.

I thank the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Mansfield (Steve Yemm), for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter) and for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton), my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross), and the hon. Members for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran) and for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) for adding their voices to this debate. It was interesting that three of the four Labour Members spoke in favour of a change of policy on oil and gas.

Although I have a lot of time and respect for the hon. Member for Stratford and Bow—indeed, I like her—I disagree considerably with her. She is a passionate advocate for what she believes, and she is right to stand up in this House and make those arguments about the UK contributing to the battle against climate change, but when she describes those of us who care passionately about the existing oil and gas industry as climate deniers, she is somewhat insulting the thousands of people in my constituency, and constituencies across the country, who rely on that industry for their income and have the very skills that will be relied upon by those developing the technologies of the future. It is supply chain industries based in Westhill, Portlethen, Banchory and Blackburn in my constituency, and in places around the country, including the north-east of England, that will develop the offshore wind or floating solar technologies of the future, or whatever it might be. It is people in Na h-Eileanan an Iar and across the United Kingdom that the hon. Lady will need and want to build more quickly.

[Uma Kumaran]

The hon. Gentleman is making his case very eloquently, but let me correct him on what I said. I am not in any way accusing his wonderful constituents of being climate deniers; I am simply pointing out the case made by some of his colleagues. I absolutely agree that we need to bring communities with us, and I am sure the whole House shares that aim.

[Andrew Bowie]

Absolutely—I could not agree more. We do need to bring communities with us.

While I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove for securing the debate, I find it increasingly frustrating that we have to return to this House and platforms across the UK to make the same arguments. One of my constituents said just the other week, “It is like banging your head against a brick wall.” None of us understands what this Government need to see or hear from experts, trade unions, former leaders of the Labour party, leaders of Scottish Renewables and RenewableUK or the chairman of Great British Energy, which this Government established less than two years ago, who are all clamouring for a change of position on the UK’s oil and gas sector.

My constituents, and people across Scotland and the United Kingdom, just do not understand why the Government, at this time of constraint on our economy, are voluntarily giving up a potential £13 billion of additional revenue over the next decade. They do not understand why the Government insist—and, indeed, are about to legislate—on a ban on new licences in the North sea while increasing imports from Norway, which has just issued more licences in its sector of the North sea, adding to the burden on climate change and undermining our economy, with British jobs lost in the process.

People do not get why the Government say on one hand that they are passionately committed to tackling global climate change and want to be global leaders in ensuring that this world is a safer place for our children, and yet on the other hand are seemingly blind to the increased emissions produced by importing more of the oil and gas that we will need over the next 30 to 40 years from places such as Qatar and the USA. They do not get why the Government are seemingly treating workers in Aberdeen, the north-east of Scotland, Fife, the Northern Isles, Na h-Eileanan an Iar and the north-east of England—everywhere that has been mentioned—with callous disregard, given that there is no transition evident.

There is a slow-down in the deployment of renewables, which is being driven by the accelerated decline in the oil and gas industry. The Port of Aberdeen, which invested millions of pounds in developing South harbour to take advantage of what it expected to be the boom in floating offshore wind less than 10 years ago, is laying off workers because the boom has not arrived. Some 63% of the harbour’s profit is generated from the oil and gas sector, and less than 2% from renewables. The decline in oil and gas is being driven too fast, and the uptick in renewables is not there.

It is a cruel irony that we are having this debate at the very moment that Swire House, a multimillion-pound global energy headquarters building, which opened a decade ago to great fanfare in the city of Aberdeen, is being demolished. That is symbolic of this Government’s approach to our energy industry, oil and gas industry, the city of Aberdeen, the north-east of Scotland and those who worked proudly in the North sea, but are now looking overseas.

As much as the Government like to say that they will increase funding and expand the transition fund, those workers are skilled workers; some of them have spent decades honing their skills in a specific, global industry, an industry that, in every country bar this one, is booming. Those skills are in high demand in the middle east, Australia, the Gulf of America—or Gulf of Mexico; take your pick—South America and Canada; basically, in every country with an oil and gas industry that does not have the current UK Energy Secretary in charge of energy policy.

That is why those workers are taking the difficult decision to uproot their families, leave the communities where they have lived all their lives and go overseas, taking with them those vital skills needed by the technologies of the future and leaving the economy of the north-east of Scotland and the United Kingdom weaker as a result. We need to see a change of policy; surely the result last week in Aberdeen South demonstrated that.

People are fed up and want change. Yes, they agree they want to get to net zero—overwhelmingly, people believe that we must tackle climate change—but this Government’s callous disregard for the industry and its workers speaks volumes about where their priorities lie. If last week did not demonstrate that, I do not know what will. I say to the Minister, “Please, please scrap the energy profits levy. Do not legislate to ban licences. Give the people of Aberdeen and north-east Scotland, and all who work in the oil and gas industry, hope for the future that the Government understand, are listening, recognise and will invest in that industry.”