Oil Refining Sector

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this Adjournment debate, and I thank Mr Speaker for granting it. As I advised the Speaker’s Office and with the Minister’s agreement, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) will take a few minutes of my time. To some extent, the points I will be making are similar to those in my Westminster Hall debate, which took place on 11 December.

Before I turn to the specific issue of the closure of the Prax Lindsey oil refinery in my constituency, I want to question the Government’s position regarding energy security. The loss of Lindsey oil refinery will reduce the UK to just four refineries. All of that makes us even more reliant on imports in a turbulent global situation. As we know, world markets can result in supplies being disrupted. At a time when we have an unpredictable American Administration, we are becoming more and more reliant on American-owned businesses, and I question whether that is wise.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and neighbour for introducing the debate. Of course, as local Members of Parliament, we must be primarily concerned with our constituents who have worked at the refinery. Is it not the point, which he powerfully makes—we have just had a debate on Ukraine—that in an increasingly dangerous world, the Government must look into their own hearts about whether their policies on energy security are meeting national security?

[Martin Vickers]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Father of the House, who makes an important point and strengthens the argument I was trying to make. We are exporting skilled jobs, and the Government seem to find that acceptable. The Minister has previously stated that the market would adjust as, indeed, it has, but it raises the question of whether, if another refinery were to close, at what point we will recognise that we must retain some refining capacity in the UK—surely for strategic reasons, if no other.

--- Later in debate ---

[Melanie Onn]

I disagree with that, but I urge the Government to be prepared to open up on some of the process. I understand that there will be commercial sensitivities, but I hope that a route can be found to enable us to scrutinise the information available.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) that there are bidders, and they think that their bid is credible. I think we are entitled to tell the Government that we do not want asset-stripping here. This is not just about the local community; we are talking about a vital national resource, and the House of Commons needs to be informed, big time.

[Melanie Onn]

We have also had trusted privilege, as a House, in the past; we were able to see secure information and secure documents. All of us were able to go to a room and sign in to read documents on exiting the European Union, for example. There are ways and means of doing these things, and of placing trust in elected representatives. Much of the information from companies was made available to local representatives anyway, because they emailed the details to us. It would be interesting to learn why the official receivers deemed bids not to be credible.

I will move forward, because decisions have already been made, and it would be challenging, to say the least, if we went backwards on this. The written statement of 22 July delivered by the Minister for Energy confirmed important commitments for those directly employed at Lindsey: a package guaranteeing jobs, a redundancy scheme that will end in March—another 240 people will be made redundant then—and a training guarantee. There have been concerns about that training guarantee, and I would ask the Ministers to look more closely at that as we move forward.