North Sea Oil and Gas Workers: Transitional Support

Brian Leishman Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. My thanks go to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) for securing this vital debate.

The fate of the skilled workers of the oil and gas sector hangs in the balance, and nowhere more so than in Grangemouth in my constituency. Once known as Scotland’s boomtown, Grangemouth has refined oil for more than a century. The refinery has been a generational employer for local families—a destination that has provided transformational opportunity for local people. It has provided world-class training and good pay, leading to improving living standards and community prosperity.

However, the owners, INEOS and PetroChina—the petrochemical wing of the Chinese state—have decided to call time on Grangemouth and Scotland’s refining capability. The first set of redundancies start in just a week’s time, and the thousands of job losses that will happen show the precarious position workers are in when private capital and a foreign Government own such a vital piece of infrastructure.

Regarding the refinery, I do not want to hear anyone insult the intelligence of the Grangemouth workers and utter the phrase “just transition”. Jobs will be lost, and the new energy industries are just not ready. That is the very definition of an unjust transition. I also do not want the Government to say that the £100 million growth deal for Falkirk and Grangemouth is the solution—not when the refinery is worth over £400 million a year to the Scottish economy. The £200 million from the National Wealth Fund that the Prime Minister announced at the Scottish Labour conference to entice new industries is welcome, but that money is conditional on private capital investment coming in with no planned Government ownership, meaning that workers, communities and Scotland will be in mercy of private capital and foreign ownership—again. Why are the Government not learning any lessons?

The refinery’s influence goes beyond the town. Grangemouth oil keeps Scotland’s 5.5 million people moving. I do not need to ask the Minister whether the refinery closing will compromise Scotland’s fuel security, because it obviously will. Scotland will now order oil in from mainland Europe—it will arrive, go through a vastly reduced quality control process, and then be distributed from the new import terminal at Grangemouth. Scotland will be dependent on European transportation logistics; an energy-rich nation will lose self-reliance—a farcical and dangerous set of circumstances.

Grangemouth only wants consistency, and that means the Government treating Scotland’s only oil refinery in the same manner as Scunthorpe steel. I put it to the Minister that the recall of Parliament showed that when there is a political will, things can get done. A Government can intervene and save jobs, a community and an industry. The argument that Grangemouth should be treated differently to Scunthorpe is total nonsense. The similarities are strikingly clear.

The Government could, and should, do the same for Grangemouth. It is the right thing to do for workers, communities and a nation’s security. That should be enough reason to intervene, but if it is not, I suggest that the Government have a look at the political implications: Scotland is watching, and our party will get a rude awakening at the ballot box in May 2026 over this issue. The Government should step in, save the jobs and extend the life of the Grangemouth refinery until the new energy industries are ready.